“Ah, childer!” said she, “it fair troubles me to go into yond’ room now: it looks so lonesome wi’ the chair empty and set back in a corner.”
She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked sad now.
“But he is in a better place,” continued Hannah: “we shouldn’t wish him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had.”
“You say he never mentioned us?” inquired one of the ladies.
“He hadn’t time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o’ ye to be sent for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the next day—that is, a fortnight sin’—and he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a’most stark when your brother went into t’ chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that’s t’ last o’ t’ old stock—for ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them ’at’s gone; for all your mother wor mich i’ your way, and a’most as book-learned. She wor the pictur’ o’ ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father.”