“Thank you, thank you,” Paul muttered, his wavering eyes on the road leading between zigzag rail fences on to his home. “I must be going now. I've got a good many things to attend to.” “Of course, I know--I know,” Ethel responded, gravely. A wagon was approaching from the direction of the village. It was drawn by two sturdy mules, which thrust their hoofs into the dust of the road so deeply that a constant cloud of the fine particles hovered over the vehicle. A negro man wearing a tattered straw hat, soiled shirt and trousers, and without shoes, was driving. Ethel caught Paul's hand impulsively, and drew him and his horse to the side of the road. “Wait till they pass,” she said. “Oh, what nasty dust!” She saw him staring at the wagon, a rigid look on his face. “It's the coffin,” he explained. “It is going out home.” The wagon rumbled on. There was an unpainted wooden box behind the negro's seat, and on it rested a plain walnut coffin, thickly coated with dust. The sun had warmed the new varnish, and there was an odor of it in the air. “Oh, it is so sad!” Paul caught the words from the averted lips of his companion. “I wish I could do something, or say something, but I can't.” Again his despair fell upon him. As he mounted his horse it seemed to him that he was a moving thing that was dead in all its parts. He couldn't remember that he had ever tipped his hat to any one in his life, and yet he did so now gracefully enough. He felt that he ought to reply to the words she had so feelingly uttered, but the muscles of his throat had tightened. A great sob was welling up within him and threatening to burst. He started his horse, and with his back to her, his head bent toward the animal's neck, he slowly rode away. “Poor boy!” Ethel said, as the mules, the wagon, the coffin, and Paul floated and vanished in the mist before her eyes. She turned and moved on toward the village, her head lowered, softly crying and earnestly praying. CHAPTER XVI |ACCORDING to rural custom the young men and young women of the neighborhood came that evening to keep watch over Ralph Rundel's body. In an open coffin resting on two chairs, it occupied the center of the room in which he died. Amanda had been busy all day cooking dainties--pies, cakes, custards, and making cider from apples gathered in the orchard. She had swept and dusted the house throughout, put the candles into their places, cleaned and filled the lamps, and altered her black dress to fit the slender form of her sister, who had been in her room all day, refusing to show herself to the constant stream of curious, inquiring visitors--men, women, and children who sat about the front and rear doors, leaned on the fences of the yard and cow-lot, and even invaded the kitchen. As for Paul, no one seemed to notice him, and of sympathy for him little was expressed. Mute and dejected he moved about, attending to his father's former duties as well as his own.