The bird went home to his nest, and she to that refuge where all is home. Though the hands that held mine grew cold as ice, and her lips replied to no kiss, and the smile on her face slept off into stillness, and a grey shade crept on her features;--I could not believe that all this was death. CLARA VAUGHAN BOOK II. CHAPTER I. "Long-shadowed death," some poet says. How well I know and feel it! the gloom before him deepening as he comes, and the world of darkness stretching many years behind. I once dared to believe that no earthly blow could ever subdue, or even bend my resolute will. I now found my mistake, and cared not even to think about it. On the morning after my mother’s death I wandered about, and could not tell where to go. The passionate clinging which would not allow me, during that blank and sleepless night, to quit what remained of her presence, and the jealous despair which felt it a wrong that any one else should approach, had now settled down to a languid heaviness, and all that I cared for was to be let alone. All the places where we had been together I visited now, without knowing why, perhaps it was to see if she were there. Then vaguely disappointed, I thought there must be some mistake, and wearily went the dreary round again. I cannot clearly call to mind, but think it must have been that day, when I was in the corner of the room, looking at the place whence they had taken dear mother. Ann Maples and Mrs. Huxtable came in, followed by the farmer, who had left his shoes at the door. They did not see me, so I suppose it must have been in the evening. They were come to remove the sofa. I have not the heart to follow their brogue. "Yes to be sure," said Mrs. Huxtable, looking at it with a short sigh. It was odd that it should strike me then, but all she did was short. "Get it out of her sight, poor dear," said Ann Maples. "To see her sit and look at it!" exclaimed the farmer’s wife. "With her eyes so dry and stupid like!" returned the other. "Poor child, she must have cried herself out. I have known her sit by the hour, and stare at the bed where her father was killed, but it was a different sort of look to this." "Ah well, she has lost a good mother," said Dame Huxtable. "God grant my poor little chicks may never be left like her." "What’s your children to talk of along with Miss Clara?" asked my nurse. Mrs. Huxtable was about to answer sharply, but checked herself, and only said: "All children is much of a muchness to their mothers." "Don’t tell me," cried Ann Maples, who had never had any. The farmer came between them, walking on tip-toe. "For good, now, don’t ye fall out at such a time as this here. What’s our affairs to speak of now?" "What’s any folks," asked Mrs. Huxtable, "that has the breath of life?"