But now the sore was opened again when, one day, a grave was dug
in the spruce woods behind the cabin, and the coffin, which had been
resting upon the scaffold since January, was taken down and
reverently lowered into the earth by Richard and Douglas. Mrs. Gray,
though still firm in the intuitive belief that her boy lived, wept
piteously when the earth clattered down upon the box and hid it
forever from view.
"I knows 'tis not Bob," she sobbed, "but where is my lad? What has
become o' my brave lad?"
Bessie, with wet eyes, comforted her with soothing words and gentle
caresses.
Richard and Douglas did their work silently, both certain beyond a
doubt that it was Bob they had laid to rest.
Nothing was said to Emily of the burial. That would have done her no
good and they did not wish to give her the pain that it would have
caused.
The days were rapidly lengthening, and the sun coming boldly nearer
the earth was tempering and mellowing the atmosphere, and every
pleasant afternoon a couch was made for Emily out of doors, where she
could bask in the sunshine, and breathe the air charged with the
perfume of the spruce and balsam forest above, and drink in the wild
beauties of the wilderness about her.
Here she lay, alone, one day late in June while her mother and Bessie
washed the dinner dishes before Bessie came out to join her, and her
father and Douglas, who had come over to dinner, smoked their pipes
and chatted in the house.
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