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seemed to me, I hid my face in Father’s waistcoat. Hannah stood by my side, holding my hand. She didn’t turn away, she didn’t cry, as I did. She was too young to understand, and I knew that, but her stolidity irked me. As the brutal raps of the clods being shoveled onto the coffin assaulted the mourners, I turned to look at her. She raised her hand, and in a theatrical little voice with a slight catch of emotion in it, but not a sob, not a tear, she said, “Good night, Mama. Golden dreams.”
    Father is right, I thought. She’s not steady. This world is not enough for my sister, because her mother has gone from it.
    Natie’s funeral was a sad affair. Father arranged everything, including the coffin, which Lon Eadley stayed up late in his shop manufacturing. It was very small, of cherrywood and lined with light blue silk. Mother Briggs dressed her grandson in the embroidered loose blouse and skirt he wore on those occasions when hewas well enough for church meeting. We gathered at Rose Cottage in the morning and followed the casket, which rested upon a bed of hay in a cart belonging to our parishioner Mr. Bedford and drawn by his old dray horse. Mother Briggs thought a hearse too big for such a tiny passenger. Mr. Bedford had a black band around his arm and he’d fastened two black bows to the horse’s halter, which struck me as both thoughtful and rather silly. Our group was only the family, at Mother Briggs’s request: Father, Hannah, the grandparents, Dinah, and myself. The grave was next to the marker that commemorates Natie’s drowned parents. Horace Beade, the gravedigger, stood with us, his hat in his hand, as Father read the service.
    All of us were anxious about Hannah, who stood at my side in her black dress and black veil, which she had drawn down to cover her face. She was too calm. There was something ominous about her solemn composure. Even at the house, when she had looked down upon the dead child in his coffin, she had shown no emotion. Though I had not known the babe so well, the sight of his pallid innocence swaddled in linen and silk brought tears to my eyes. Mother Briggs stood at the head of the coffin as we each filed by. She was haggard, her lips compressed into a thin line, her eyes sunk deep in their sockets. When we had all bid farewell to the departed child, my uncle laid the lid upon the frame and drove in the nails, each stroke of the hammer resounding in the still air of the parlor. Hannah took my hand and held it, pressing tightly as each nail was driven home.
    It was a cool, damp day, overcast and gloomy. As Father led the prayers, a few drops sprinkled over the company. The drizzle increased and he concluded speedily. How much could be said of such a brief life? We turned and walked away stolidly, while Horace took up his shovel to fill the narrow grave. It wouldn’t take him long.
    At home, Dinah and Mother Briggs disappeared into the kitchen to prepare us a breakfast of biscuits, jam, and coffee. The gentlemen went off for a private confab in Uncle’s study, which left Hannah and me alone, sitting on the couch before the fire myuncle had laid in the morning and lit at once on our return from the mournful outing.
    I pulled off my gloves and pried my hat loose from the pins that held it in place. Hannah sat perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap.
    “You can take your veil off now,” I suggested as my hat came free of my hair.
    “No,” Hannah said softly. “I don’t want to.”
    “Why not, dearest?” I asked. “It’s not appropriate in the house.” She gave no answer. Dinah came in from the kitchen to call us to breakfast. Seeing Hannah motionless in her heavy veil, she cast me a questioning look, which I answered by lifting my eyebrows. “Will you come to breakfast?” I asked my sister.
    “Oh yes,” she said, rising from her chair. And so she sat at the kitchen table, pushing bits of bread under the veil and into her mouth while the rest of us pretended we