Perhaps it was a hazardous experiment, to place that young and susceptible girl in such a presence. Mr. Duncan did not know what he was doing; he was one of those individuals who can not in the least understand childhood, its deep feelings, its mysterious impulses, its strange associations, its superstitions taught by Nature herself, its heavenly breathings, to which it can give neither form nor words. He believed the experiment was perfectly successful, for Gwyneth’s tears and cries alike ceased in that solemn presence, and she gazed in quiet, awestruck, breathless surprise at the form before her. Softly and gently her father talked to her, whispering of the absent spirit which had gone away for a time, but which might even now be near, how near to them they could not tell; and of that day when this spirit should return again, and that fair form, now motionless, cold, inanimate as marble itself, should arise once more to everlasting life. And then he knelt with Gwyneth in his arms, and prayed that they might all meet hereafter in that home of everlasting peace, where no partings come. She was very still and subdued as he carried her back from the room, and gave her to the nurse’s charge, and they did not know the effect that sight had produced on her, for she could not speak of her feelings; but sleeping or waking, that face for weeks was before her eyes, and the coldness of death seemed over her lips and cheeks, such as she had felt it, when, at her father’s bidding, she had pressed a last kiss on the corpse; and she would shrink into corners of the house or garden, to cry and shudder alone, when none saw her, and muse in silence upon what her mother was. Sybil was different; she clung to Hilary, she hardly dared to be alone; but with a pallid face, and swimming eyes, and little trembling hands, she followed her sister all day long; and never wearied of talking of her mother; of her wishes, her tastes, her goodness; every action seemed referred to that object; and she spoke of her as one that was absent only for a short time, who would soon return to claim their obedience again. Gwyneth would turn pale, shiver, and, if possible, quit the room at the slightest mention of her mother’s name; nor could Hilary’s utmost efforts win from her the feelings that oppressed her. Of course, as time passed, it brought the usual mitigation of acute sorrow. Sybil learned to speak with dry eyes of the departed, Gwyneth taught herself to bear the thought without visible demonstration of feeling; but the effect remained upon their characters; Sybil was more soft and dependent, Gwyneth more reserved in her general demeanor, while the fire which burned below that outward crust of indifference and calmness was but the fiercer for its concealment. CHAPTER II.