I-XVIII

Clare's body was brought back to Greenstream
on the following day. His sister
and her numerous brood descended solicitously
upon Gordon later; neighbors, kindly and officious,
arrived... Clare was laid out. There
were sibilant, whispered conversations about a mislaid
petticoat with a mechlin hem; drawers were
searched and the missing garment triumphantly unearthed;
silk mitts were discussed, discarded; the
white shoes -- real buck and a topnotch article --
forced on. At last Clare was exhibited in the room
that had been hers. There was no place in the
Makimmon dwelling for general assemblage but the
kitchen, and it had been pointed out by certain delicate
souls that the body and the preparations for the
funeral repast would accord but doubtfully. Besides,
the kitchen was too hot.

Clare's peaked, blue-white countenance was withdrawn
and strange above a familiar, harsh black
silk dress; her hands, folded upon her flat breast, lay
in a doubled attitude dreadfully impossible to life.
A thin locket of gold hung on a chain about her still
throat. The odor of June roses that filled the cor-

[[88]]

p087 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p088w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p089

v?