THERE IS NO HURRY. 193

for he put a piece of gold in the woman’s hand.
She turned it over, and as she hastened from
the room, muttered, ‘“‘ If this had come sooner,
she’d not have died of starvation or burdened
the parish for a shroud ; it’s hard the rich can’t
look to their own.”

When Mary returned, she was fearfully calm.
‘¢ No, her brother was not dead,”’ she said ; “‘ the
young were longer dying than those whom the
world had worn out; the young knew so little
of the world, they thought it hard to leave it ;”
and she took off her bonnet, and sat down; |
and. while her uncle explained why he had not
written, she looked at him with eyes so fixed
and cold, that he paused, hoping she would speak,
so painful was their stony expression; but she
let him go on, without offering one word of as-
surance of any kind feeling or remembrance ;
and when she stooped to adjust a portion of the
coarse plaiting of the shroud—that mockery of
‘“‘the purple and fine linen of living days ”—
her uncle saw that her hair, her luxuriant hair,
was striped with white.

‘There is no need for words now,” she said
at last; “no need. I thought you would have
sent ; she required but little—but very little ; the
dust rubbed from the gold she once had would
have been riches: but the little she did require
she had not, and so she died; but what weighs
heaviest upon my mind was her calling so con-
tinuallv on my father, to know why he had de-

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