She were just stunned by finding her mother was dying in her very arms when she thought as she were only sleeping; yet she's never been able to cry a drop; so that t' sorrow's gone inwards on her brain, and from all I can hear, she doesn't rightly understand as her husband is missing.

T' doctor says if she could but cry, she'd come to a juster comprehension of things.' 'And what do John and Jeremiah Foster say to it all ?' 'They're down here many a time in t' day to ask if he's come back, or how she is; for they made a deal on 'em both.

They're going t' attend t' funeral to-morrow, and have given orders as t' shop is to be shut up in t' morning.' To the surprise of every one, Sylvia, who had never left her room since the night of her mother's death, and was supposed to be almost unconscious of all that was going on in the house, declared her intention of following her mother to the grave.

No one could do more than remonstrate: no one had sufficient authority to interfere with her.

Dr Morgan even thought that she might possibly be roused to tears by the occasion; only he begged Hester to go with her, that she might have the solace of some woman's company.
She went through the greater part of the ceremony in the same hard, unmoved manner in which she had received everything for days past.
But on looking up once, as they formed round the open grave, she saw Kester, in his Sunday clothes, with a bit of new crape round his hat, crying as if his heart would break over the coffin of his good, kind mistress.
His evident distress, the unexpected sight, suddenly loosed the fountain of Sylvia's tears, and her sobs grew so terrible that Hester feared she would not be able to remain until the end of the funeral.