Mrs. Judson did not speak, but her face turned coldly white. Jane looked at her with a sense of superiority. She was far above such weakness as that. Neither the living nor the dead could frighten her much. That half hour had lifted her into a feeling almost of companionship with the woman who had swept by her so haughtily in the hall. “Don’t take on, ma’am,” she said; “if I was you now, it would not be ten minutes before I should be in bed and sound asleep; but there is a difference between people and people; so if you like sitting up in a chair, why, chair it is, say I.” But Mrs. Judson was not sitting in her chair just then. Some new thought had seized upon her, and she was walking up and down the room in great agitation. When Jane Kelly was about to withdraw, she called her back. “If this should prove true,” she said, “I shall want help, and have no one to confide in. Will you be faithful and silent if I double the sum you have just received?” “True as steel, and silent as the grave. Try me.” “If it should prove true, I will. You may go now.” As Jane went down-stairs, Ellen was waiting in the hall, and would have stopped her for a little free gossip, but Jane passed her, only stopping to say,— “Wait till I come again, then you shall hear lots.” CHAPTER XV. PREPARING FOR THE FUNERAL. Early the next morning, Mrs. Judson went out from the basement of her house, almost for the first time in her life, and in company with Jane Kelly passed into the street. None of the servants were up, and the lady had put on a walking-dress, so plain and dark, that no one would have been likely to notice her had many persons been abroad. Through that side-gate in the garden-wall, Jane conducted her charge, and they passed together down that same gloomy path into a little stone building near the water. “Don’t be afraid; it’s nothing when you get used to it,” she said, patronizingly. “I remember almost fainting the first time I came here, but now I don’t even think of it.” All this show of courage did not prevent Mrs. Judson from turning cold as marble when that door was thrown open, and she found herself close by a coarse pine coffin, from which Jane was composedly removing the lid. The lady cast one glance at the dead-whiteness of the face revealed to her, and retreated into the open air, pale, almost, as the corpse she had left. Jane followed her, swinging the key on her finger. “Is it her, lady?” she asked, in a whisper. “Yes.” “Well, what am I to do?” “Can it be quietly removed? Is that permitted?” “Yes; money can do anything. Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it; for if any one knows how, it’s the person before you.” Mrs. Judson stood in the garden a while irresolute, then she turned toward the woman and said, almost helplessly, notwithstanding her great pride,— “You know best how to manage it. I will tell you what I want, then try and carry out my wishes.”