'Well, it does seem strange to think that the lad's really gone,' she said again; 'don't it now, Stephen?' My father gave a sort of grunt that might mean anything. After dinner, as he stood by the chimney-piece, his eyes fell upon a many-clasped knife that belonged to Cuthbert. He looked round to see if any one was watching him; presently his fingers closed quietly over it, and it was dropped into his pocket. I took no heed, it was growing upon him, that habit of secretly hoarding any stray thing that came in his way. Then began a time about which there is little to tell. Our life, except that Cuthbert was gone, moved on, seemingly unaltered. And yet the old time and the new were as different really, as a place that you have known in the sunshine looks when you see it again by moonlight. The place itself is unchanged, the outlines, the shape, the substance are still there, only the colouring is gone. All that gave warmth and brightness has been taken away. Grey and black and white tints alone remain. Was it really only yesterday that I had come home, I thought--only yesterday that I was watching a sunset of clear gold and red in a blue sky, as I came along the road from Morechester, thinking my sunlit thoughts? In an hour or two I was to see Hildred. Home where she was, lay somewhere in the heart of that bright west. When I reached the village the sun set for me indeed. The light faded in a minute from my cloudland of dreams. The time hung all the more heavily on my hands, that I was too lame, for a while after my coming home, to be able to do much. It was a great comfort when I got strong again. Hard work, work that lasted from morning until night, was the best thing then. I did not care to think more than I could help. It only made things worse. At first I could not make out rightly, how much or how little it was my duty to be with Hildred, remembering that now she was only a charge left to me by Cuthbert. It would have been easier to keep away altogether, but the poor child was unhappy. In the newness and strangeness of her first sorrow, she needed a great deal of comforting. No one had much time or thought to give to the remembrance of Cuthbert, so she came to me, reminding me that I had promised to be good to her. It has always seemed to me that any trouble is the most easily borne in silence. Many words only make the pain worse, and take away from the patience and strength with which one has to bear it. But it was different for little Hildred. Child-like, or woman-like, it was a comfort to her to say how very sad she was. She came to tell how she missed Cuthbert; how long and dull the days seemed without the hope of seeing him; of how she often thought she heard his voice calling to her, and forgot that it was gone far beyond her hearing.