Evelina Adams died in March. One morning the bell tolled seventy long melancholy tones before people had eaten their breakfasts. They ran to their doors and counted. “It’s her,” they said, nodding, when they had waited a little after the seventieth stroke. Directly Mrs. Martha Loomis and her two girls were seen hustling importantly down the road, with their shawls over their heads, to the Squire’s house. “Mis’ Loomis can lay her out,” they said. “It ain’t likely that young Evelina knows anything about such things. Guess she’ll be thankful she’s got somebody to call on now, if she ’ain’t mixed much with the Loomises.” Then they wondered when the funeral would be, and the women furbished up their black gowns and bonnets, and even in a few cases drove to the next town and borrowed from relatives; but there was a great disappointment in store for them. Evelina Adams died on a Saturday. The next day it was announced from the pulpit that the funeral would be private, by the particular request of the deceased. Evelina Adams had carried her delicate seclusion beyond death, to the very borders of the grave. Nobody, outside the family, was bidden to the funeral, except the doctor, the minister, and the two deacons of the church. They were to be the bearers. The burial also was to be private, in the Squire’s family burial-lot, at the north of the house. The bearers would carry the coffin across the yard, and there would not only be no funeral, but no funeral procession, and no hearse. “It don’t seem scarcely decent,” the women whispered to each other; “and more than all that, she ain’t goin’ to be _seen_.” The deacons’ wives were especially disturbed by this last, as they might otherwise have gained many interesting particulars by proxy. Monday was the day set for the burial. Early in the morning old Thomas Merriam walked feebly up the road to the Squire’s house. People noticed him as he passed. “How terrible fast he’s grown old lately!” they said. He opened the gate which led into the Squire’s front yard with fumbling fingers, and went up the walk to the front door, under the Corinthian pillars, and raised the brass knocker. Evelina opened the door, and started and blushed when she saw him. She had been crying; there were red rings around her blue eyes, and her pretty lips were swollen. She tried to smile at Thomas’s father, and she held out her hand with shy welcome. “I want to see her,” the old man said, abruptly. Evelina started, and looked at him wonderingly. “I--don’t believe--I know who you mean,” said she. “Do you want to see Mrs. Loomis?” “No; I want to see her.” “_Her?_” “Yes, _her_.” Evelina turned pale as she stared at him. There was something strange about his face. “But--Cousin Evelina,” she faltered--“she--didn’t want--Perhaps you don’t know: she left special directions that nobody was to look at her.”