Ours aux pralines); Aunt Claire exchanging a few words, which I could just hear, with my mother, who lay in the room beyond: 'Are you asleep, sister?' And her great clock on the wall—now stopped—that used to strike so loud; the clock which made so much noise when it was wound, and which, to our great amusement, she used sometimes to wind on the stroke of midnight,—so that it had become a traditional pleasantry in the house, whenever we heard any noise at night, to lay the blame on Aunt Claire and her clock. … Ended, all this, ended. Gone to her place of burial, Aunt Claire,—and my mother, doubtless, will prefer not to return to the room next to hers; silence, then, has fallen there forever. For so many years, it was my joy and my peace to hear them both, to recognize their dear, good old voices that came clearly through the wall in the stillness of the night. … Ended, now; never, never shall I hear them more."
Archer was happily ignorant of what the book might be. But when the girl's voice had ceased, he was aware that her father,
