And so Desire Ledwith and Hazel Ripwinkley sat in the old house together, and made their pure, young, generous plans; so they went in and out, and did their work, blessedly; and Uncle Titus’s arm-chair stood there, where it always had, at the library table; and the Book of the Gospels, with its silver cross, lay in its silken cover where it always lay; and nothing had gone but the bent old form from which the strength had risen and the real presence loosened itself; and Uncle Titus’s grand, beautiful life passed over to them continually; for hands on earth, he had their hands; for feet, their feet.  There was no break, as Desire had said; it was the wonderful “fellowship of the mystery” which God meant, in the manifold wisdom that they know in heavenly places, when He ordained the passing over.  We call it death; we make it death; a separation.  We leave off there.  We gather up the tools that loved ones drop, and use them to carve out, selfishly, our own pleasures; we let their life go, as if it were no matter to keep it up upon the earth.  We turn our backs, and go our ways, and leave saints’ hands outstretched invisibly in vain.

It was ever so bright and cheerful in this house into which death—­that was such a birth—­had come.  These children were brimming over with happy thankfulness that Uncle Titus had loved and trusted them so.  They never solemnized their looks or lengthened their accent when they spoke of him; he had come a great deal nearer to them in departing than he had ever known how to come, or they to approach him, before.  Something young in his nature that had been hidden by gray hairs and slowness of years, sprang to join itself to their youth on which he had laid his bequest of the Lord’s work.  They ran lightly up and down where he had walked with measured gravity; they chatted and laughed, for they knew he was gladder than either; they sat in Desire’s large, bright chamber at their work, or they went down to find out things in books in the library; and here, though nothing fell with any chill upon their spirits, they handled reverently the volumes he had loved,—­they used tenderly the appliances that had been his daily convenience.  With an unspoken consent, they never sat in the seat that had been his.  The young heiresses of his place and trust made each a place for herself at opposite ends of the large writing-table, and left his chair before his desk as if he himself had just left it and might at any moment come in and sit again there with them.  They always kept a vase of flowers beside the desk, at the left hand.

One day, that summer, they were up-stairs, sewing.  Rachel Froke was busy below; they could hear some light movement now and then, in the stillness; or her voice came up through the open windows as she spoke to Frendely, the dear old serving woman, helping her dust and sort over glasses and jars for the yearly preserving.

I cannot tell you what an atmosphere of things and relations that had grown and sweetened and mellowed there was about this old home; what a lovely repose of stability, in the midst of the domestic ferments that are all about us in the changing households of these changing days.  Frendely, who had served her maiden apprenticeship in a country family of England, said it was like the real old places there.