Part Three - The Counsel of the Stars

July 21. Night.

It had been arranged that for the two nights before the funeral Agnes
was to sleep in the front bedroom, on one side of Cousin Hetty's room,
and Marise in the small hall bedroom on the other side, the same room
and the same bed in which she had slept as a little girl. Nothing had
been changed there, since those days. The same heavy white pitcher and
basin stood in the old wash-stand with the sunken top and hinged cover;
the same oval white soap-dish, the same ornamental spatter-work frame in
dark walnut hung over the narrow walnut bedstead.

As she undressed in the space between the bed and the wash-stand, the
past came up before her in a sudden splashing wave of recollection which
for a moment engulfed her. It had all been a dream, all that had
happened since then, and she was again eight years old, with nothing in
the world but bad dreams to fear, and Cousin Hetty there at hand as a
refuge even against bad dreams. How many times she had wakened,
terrified, her heart beating hammer-strokes against her ribs, and
trotted shivering, in her night-gown, into Cousin Hetty's room.

"Cousin Hetty! Cousin Hetty!"

"What? What's that? Oh, you, Marise. What's the matter? Notions again?"

"Oh, Cousin Hetty, it was an awful dream this time. Can't I get into
bed with you?"

"Why yes, come along, you silly child."