the bereaved father and daughter were wild with grief, and they abandoned themselves to their bitter sorrow. they felt it to be impossible to take leave of the loved woman who till now had filled their whole lives and to commit her body to the earth. but this frantic burst of grief passed, and then they took possession of their own hearts again, crushed though they were in resignation. in spite of this the daughter's life seemed to her desolate. her love for her dead mother did not grow less with time, and so keen was her remembrance, that everything in daily life, even the falling of the rain and the blowing of the wind, reminded her of her mother's death and of all that they had loved and shared together. one day when her father was out, and she was fulfilling her household duties alone, her loneliness and sorrow seemed more than she could bear. she threw herself down in her mother's room and wept as if her heart would break. poor child, she longed just for one glimpse of the loved face, one sound of the voice calling her pet name, or for one moment's forgetfulness of the aching void in her heart. suddenly she sat up. her mother's last words had rung through her memory hitherto dulled by grief.