noon
And no woman likes even a lost lover to think scornfully of her . But she brought her sewing beside her mother and talked the affair over with her , and so , at the end of the evening , went to bed resigned , and even cheerful . Never had they spent a more confidential , loving night together , and this fact was destined to be a comfort to Jean during all the rest of her life . For in the morning she noticed a singular look on her mother 's face and at noon she found her in her chair fast in that sleep which knows no wakening in this world . It was a blow which put all other considerations far out of Jean 's mind . She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss , and though Uncle David came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements , she suffered no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead . And oh !