Parting with the Dead and Parting with the Living

He scarcely spoke to Edith, although he knew whenever her
footsteps crossed the threshold of the darkened room; knew when
she bent over Nina; heard the kisses she pressed on the cold lips;
and even watched until it was dry the tear she once left on Nina's
cheek, but he held no communication with her, and she was left to
battle with her grief alone. Once, indeed, she went to him and
asked what Nina should be buried in, and this for a time roused
him from his apathetic grief.

"Nina must be buried in white," he said; "she looked the best in
that; and, Edith, I would have her curls cut off, all but those
that shade her face. You have arranged them every day. Will you do
so once more if I will hold her up?"

Edith would rather the task had devolved upon some one else, but
she offered no objection, though her tears fell like rain when she
brought the curling-stick and brush and began to separate the
tangled locks, while Arthur encircled the rigid form with his arm,
as carefully as if she still were living, watching her with
apparent interest as she twined about her fingers the golden hair.

But when, at last, she held the scissors which were to sever those
bright tresses, his fortitude all gave way, for he remembered
another time when he had held poor Nina, not as he held her now,
but with a stronger, firmer grasp, while, by rougher hands than
Edith's, those locks were shorn away. Groan after groan came from
his broad chest, and his tears moistened the long ringlets he so
lovingly caressed.