Society veils it with decent reserve, and calls it morbid and vulgar, yet it is ineradicably human, and circumstances alone decide whether it shall be confessed.
But when the preacher came out of the house, all was quiet and deserted.
The snow, driving in white sheets down the mountains, was tinged with a faint glow, where, in a blinding mist it whirled across the yards; it had come too late to save the lumber, but it had checked and deadened the flames, so that the few unburned planks only smouldered slowly into ashes.
John had told Mrs.Davis of her loss with that wonderful gentleness which characterized all his dealings with sorrow.

He found her trying to quiet her baby, when he went in, leaving outside in the softly falling snow that ghastly burden which the men bore.

She looked up with startled, questioning eyes as he entered.

He took the child out of her arms, and hushed it upon his breast, and then, with one of her shaking hands held firm in his, he told her.
Afterwards, it seemed to her that the sorrow in his face had told her, and that she knew his message before he spoke.
Mrs.Davis had not broken into loud weeping when she heard her husband's fate, and she was very calm, when John saw her again, after all had been done which was needful for the dead; only moving nervously about, trying to put the room into an unusual order.

John could not bear to leave her; knowing what love is, his sympathy for her grief was almost grief itself; yet he had said all that he could say to comfort her, all that he could of Tom's bravery in rushing into the fire, and it seemed useless to stay.
But as he rose to go, putting the child, who had fallen asleep in his arms, down on the bed, Mrs.Davis stopped him.
She stood straightening the sheet which covered Tom's face, creasing its folds between her fingers, and pulling it a little on this side or that.
"Mr.Ward," she said, "he was drunk, Tom was." "I know it," he answered gently.
"He went out with some money this forenoon," she went on; "he was to buy some things for the young ones.