"My time has come," said Mrs. Hartman. "Everything is attended to and written out in the desk. You can tell the squire." "I will," faltered Katy, standing between the tall pillars at the foot of the bed. She remembered the squire's face as he came to tell her grandmother that Grandfather Gaumer was dead; she thought of David and David's face when he should be told. David would be alone in the world; surely, though he had all its riches, he would care! Surely his mother had a message for him. The preacher was a newcomer; he did not know David; he should give him no message from his mother! And Dr. Benner should give him no message from his mother. Katy clasped her hands a little more closely and looked down upon Cassie. "And David?" Cassie's eyelids quivered, but she made no reply. "Some one must send for David!" When Cassie still made no answer, Katy came round the corner of the bed and stood by the pillow. "Suppose"--Katy stammered and faltered--"suppose--shall anything be said to David if--if--" "David will find everything ready," said Cassie, wearily. "He will find everything in order." Katy leaned over the pillow. Cassie could not know what it was to die, to go away forever; Cassie could not know how one wept and mourned when those whom one loved had died; could not know how one remembered every word, cherished every caress. David had no one else, and David was young; David could not be so hard of heart as he seemed or Cassie so stony. There was hardly a person in Millerstown who would have ventured to oppose Cassie, or to persuade her against her will. But all the characteristics of Katy's youth had not vanished; still, seeing a goal, she moved toward it, disregarding obstacles. It seemed to her that she heard the gate swing open and shut, heard the sound of voices, of rapid footsteps. The preacher and the doctor were coming, and probably other Millerstonians would come with them. She took Cassie by the hand and was terrified by its chill. "Do you not leave your love for David?" she asked, crying. Cassie looked up at her with no other expression than slight astonishment, as though Katy's language were strange. Cassie loved nothing that could turn and rend her. John had turned and had rent her, but in David's case she had had a care for herself, from misery there she had sternly and bravely defended herself. This bright-eyed Katy with her light step and her pretty ways had disturbed her, had set her to dreaming at night of a house filled with children, of growing boys and girls who would have loved their mother and cherished her. And here this same Katy hung above her, clung to her, would not, thought poor Cassie, would not let her die as she had planned! She did not know that hardness of heart was in her a more terrible hurt than any offense which love could have brought. In her weakness she felt a sudden quiver of life in that heart of stone; it seemed as though it melted to water.