Oh, it was gloomy work.

There was wailing in the house, but I could not stop to mourn.

I had often made the swaddling-clothes for a child, but that was the only time I fashioned a robe for the grave.

To fit it around the little neck, and make the sleeves just long enough for the quiet arms--it hurt me more than the tilt hammers that smote me in Sheffield, than the files of the scissors-grinder at the door.

I heard heart-strings snap as I went through the linen, and in the white pleats to be folded over the still heart I saw the snow banked on a grave.