Looking at his watch the doctor found that it lacked several hours ere the express from Boston was due. But this did not discourage him. He would stay in the fields or anywhere, and turning backward he followed the course of the river winding under the hill until he reached the friendly woods which shielded him from observation. How he hated himself hiding there among the trees, and how he longed for the downward train, which came at last, and when the village bell tolled out its summons to the house of mourning, he sat in a corner of the car returning to New York even faster than he had come. * * * * * Gradually the Riverside cottage filled with people assembling to pay the last tribute of respect to the deceased, who during her short stay among them had endeared herself to many hearts. Slowly, sadly, they bore her to the grave. Reverently they laid her down to rest, and from the carriage window Alice’s white face looked wistfully out as “earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” broke the solemn stillness. Oh, how she longed to lay there too, beside her mother! How the sunshine, flecking the bright June grass with gleams of gold, seemed to mock her misery as the gravelly earth rattled heavily down upon the coffin lid, and she knew they were covering up her mother. “If I too could die!” she murmured, sinking back in the carriage corner and covering her face with her veil. But not so easily could life be shaken off by her, the young and strong. She must live yet longer. She had a work to do—a work whose import she knew not; and the mother’s death, for which she then could see no reason, though she knew well that one existed, was the entrance to that work. She must live and she must listen while Mr. Liston talked to her that night on business, arranging about the letter, which was forwarded immediately to Kentucky, and advising her what to do until an answer was received. Not a word did he say of his interview with the doctor, nor did Alice know he had been there. She would not have cared if she had, so crushed and desolate was her young heart, and after Mr. Liston was gone and the house had become quiet again, a species of apathy settled upon her as with a feeling akin to despair she sat down to wait for the news from Kentucky, which was to decide her future course. CHAPTER IX. MATTERS IN KENTUCKY. Backward now with our reader we turn, and take up the broken thread of our story at the point where we left Adah Hastings, sleeping, in that best chamber at Spring Bank; while around the timeworn building the winter wind howled dismally, and drove the sleet in gusts against the windows. There were piles of snow next morning upon the steps, huge drifts against the doors, and banks against the fences, while the bent-up negroes shivered and drew back from the cutting blast, so foreign to their temperaments.