Page:Haworth's.djvu/71

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"NOT FOR ONE HOUR."
51

the shoulder." It displayed a florid heaven and a burning hell. It was literal, and well garnished with telling and scriptural quotations. Once or twice during its delivery Murdoch glanced at Janey and Mrs. Briarley. The woman, during intervals of eager pacifying of the big baby, lifted her pale face and listened devoutly. Janey sat respectable and rigorous, her eyes fixed upon the pulpit, her huge shawl folded about her, her bonnet slipping backward at intervals, and requiring to be repeatedly rearranged by a smart hustling somewhere in the region of the crown.

The night was very quiet when they came out into the open air. The smoke-clouds of the day had been driven away by a light breeze, and the sky was bright with stars. Mrs. Briarley and the ubiquitous baby joined a neighbor and hastened home, but Murdoch and Janey lingered a little.

"My father is buried here," Murdoch had said, and Janey had answered with sharp curiousriess,—

"Wheer's th' place? I'd loike to see it. Has tha gotten a big head-stone up?"

She was somewhat disappointed to find there was none, and that nothing but the sod covered the long mound, but she appeared to comprehend the state of affairs at once.

"I s'pose tha'lt ha' one after a bit," she said, "when tha'rt not so short as tha art now. Ivverybody's short i' these toimes."

She seated herself upon the stone coping of the next grave, her elbow on her knee, a small, weird figure in the uncertain light.

"I allus did loike a big head-stone," she remarked, reflectively. "Theer's summat noice about a big white un