“He’s gone where it is a great deal more beautiful,” she said to them, like a child.  “He’s gone where there’s better treasures than these which he had here.”

They all looked at her in amazement.  It actually seemed as if, for the moment, the woman’s sole grief was over the loss to her husband of those things which he had on earth—­the treasures of his mortal state.

Robert took hold of his aunt’s arm and led her, quite unresisting, from the room, and as she went she felt for Ellen’s hand.  “It is time she was home,” she said to Robert.  “Her folks will be worried about her.  She’s been a real comfort to me.”

It was the first time that Ellen had ever seen death, that she had ever seen the living confronted with it.  She felt as if a wave were breaking over her own head as she clung fast to Mrs. Lloyd’s hand.

“Sha’n’t I stay?” she whispered, pitifully, to her.  “If I can send word to my mother—­”

“No, you dear child,” replied Mrs. Lloyd, “you’ve done enough, and you will have to be up early in the morning.”  Then she checked herself.  “I forgot,” said she to Robert; “the factory will be closed till after the funeral, won’t it?”

“Of course it will, Aunt Lizzie.”

“And the workmen will be paid just the same, of course,” said Mrs. Lloyd.  “Now, can’t you take her home, Robert?”

“Oh, don’t mind about me,” cried Ellen.

“You can have a horse put into the buggy,” said Mrs. Lloyd.

“Oh, you mustn’t leave her now,” Ellen whispered to Robert.  “Let somebody else take me—­Dr. James—­”

“I would rather you took her,” said Mrs. Lloyd.  “And you needn’t worry about his leaving me, dear child; the doctor will stay until he comes back.”

As Robert was finally going out his aunt caught his arm and looked at him with a radiant expression.  “He will never know about me now,” said she, “and it won’t be long before I—­ Oh, I feel as if I had gotten rid of my own death.”

She was filled with inexpressible thankfulness that she had herself to bear what she had dreaded for her husband.  “Only think how hard it would have been for Norman,” she said to Cynthia, the next day.

Cynthia looked at her wonderingly.  She could have understood this feeling over a dearly beloved child.  “You are a good woman, Lizzie,” she said, in a tone of pitiful respect.

“Not half as good a woman as he was a man,” returned Mrs. Lloyd, jealously.  “Norman wasn’t a professor, I know, but he was a believer.  You don’t think it is necessary to be a professor in order to be saved, do you, Cynthia?”

“I certainly do not,” Cynthia replied.  “I wish you would go and lie down, Lizzie.”