“How?” broke from several voices, in whose sound was mingled a touch of incredulity.
“Only by making a little coffin on the wall,” was the reply.
“Did the fashionable mother confess too?”
“She had nothing more to confess than everybody knew.”
“What did everybody know then?”
“That she might have been kissing a living child, when she followed a dead one to the grave.—The next will fare better.”
“I put a stop to a wedding,” said another.
“Horrid shade!” remarked a poetic imp.
“How?” said others. “Tell us how.”
“Only by throwing a darkness, as if from the branch of a sconce, over the forehead of a fair girl.—They are not married yet, and I do not think they will be.