Twenty-four hours after the falling of the cliff, it seemed as if it had
happened ages ago. The new fact had fitted itself in with all the old
predictions, forebodings, fears, and acquired the solidarity belonging to
all events which have slipped out of the fingers of Time and dissolved in
the antecedent eternity.
Old Sophy was lying dead in the Dudley mansion. If there were tears shed
for her, they could not be bitter ones; for she had lived out her full
measure of days, and gone--who could help fondly believing it?--to rejoin
her beloved mistress. They made a place for her at the foot of the two
mounds. It was thus she would have chosen to sleep, and not to have
wronged her humble devotion in life by asking to lie at the side of those
whom she had served so long and faithfully. There were very few present
at the simple ceremony. Helen Darley was one of these few. The old black
woman had been her companion in all the kind offices of which she had
been the ministering angel to Elsie.
After it was all over, Helen was leaving with the rest, when Dudley
Veneer begged her to stay a little, and he would send her back: it was a
long walk; besides, he wished to say some things to her, which he had not
had the opportunity of speaking.
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