The woman rose: she opened a door，through which I dimly saw a passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.

"Ah，childer!" said she，"it fair troubles me to go into yond" room now: it looks so lonesome wi" the chair empty and set back in a corner."

She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls，grave before，looked sad now.

"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn"t wish him here again. And then，nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had."

"You say he never mentioned us?" inquired one of the ladies.

"He hadn"t time，bairn: he was gone in a minute，was your father.

He had been a bit ailing like the day before，but naught to signify; and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o" ye to be sent for，he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the next day- that is，a fortnight sin"- and he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a"most stark when your brother went into t" chamber and fand him. Ah，childer! that"s t" last o" t" old stock- for ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them "at"s gone; for all your mother wor mich i" your way，and a"most as book-learned. She wor the pictur" o" ye，Mary: Diana is more like your father."

I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair plexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and intelligence. One，to be sure，had hair a shade darker than the other，and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary"s pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana"s duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck ten.

"Ye"ll want your supper，I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will Mr. St. John when he es in."