"Oh," Bessie said, with a sigh of relief, as she turned to Grey, who was
sitting next to her, but her eye went past him to Hannah, who, with her
hands clasped tightly together, sat as rigid as a block of marble,
gazing so intently at the spot which held so much horror for her that
she did not at first know when Bessie stole softly to her side; but when
the young girl wound her arm around her neck, and kissing her softly,
said: "They have let him into the light, and I am so glad; it does not
seem now like a hidden grave," the tension on her nerves gave way, and
she burst into a paroxysm of tears, the very last she ever shed over
that hidden grave. For, like Bessie, she felt better, now that the
sunlight was falling upon it, and by and by, when everything was
accomplished, and Bessie had carried out her idea, she felt that the
dead man's monument would be worthy of a far nobler personage than he
who slept beneath it.
Yielding to Bessie's earnest solicitations Grey decided to remain with
her in Allington during the summer and superintend in person the work,
which, owing to good management and the great number of men employed,
went on so rapidly that by the last of October everything was done
except the furnishing, which was to be put off until Spring, for before
the autumn came it was known that Hannah would never occupy the house
save as she went there a visitor.
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