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Rh he could not bear even that faithful old creature to witness an emotion which he felt he could not master.

It was a hard task to teach those poor children that their mother was dead. Death is so incomprehensible to a child. They would not believe that their mother would not return. "Mamma can’t do without us," said Ellen. "I am sure she will come back for us."

"She will never come back," replied Eda.

"Then why did she not take us with her?" exclaimed Julia.

"You will go to her in time, if you are good children," was the old nurse's answer.

"Let us go at once," cried they in a breath.

It was in vain to make them understand the impossibility; and that night, for the first time in their lives, the twins cried themselves to sleep.

"I know where Mamma is," whispered Julia to her sister; "though they keep the house so dark that we may not find her. I heard them say that their mistress was in the south room."