t to let him
sleep through it all, but then it was sich a horrible death."

When she had finished dressing the child, she led him to the bed and
showed him his mother's face. He touched it with his little grimy
finger, and then, as if, young as he was, the realization of his
bereavement had fully come to him, he burst into tears.

Miss Hester turned her face away, but Mrs. Davis did not try to conceal
her tears. She took the boy up in her arms and comforted him the best
she could.

"Don't cry, Freddie," she said; "don't cry; mamma's--restin'. Ef you
don't care, Miss Prime, I 'll take him over home an' give him some
breakfast, an' leave him with my oldest girl, Sophy. She kin stay out o'
school to-day. I 'll bring you back a cup o' tea, too; that is, ef you
ain't afeared--"

"Afeared o' what?" exclaimed Miss Prime, turning on her.

"Well, you know, Miss Hester, bein' left alone--ah--some people air
funny about--"

"I 'm no fool, Melissy Davis. Take the child an' go on."

Miss Hester was glad of the chance to be sharp. It covered the weakness
to which she had almost given way at sight of the child's grief. She
bustled on about her work when Mrs. Davis was gone, but her brow was
knit into a wrinkle of deep thought. "A mother is a mother, after all,"
she mused aloud, "even sich a one."

CHAPTER II

For haste, for unadulterated despatch, commend me to the county burying.
The body politic is busy and has no time to waste on an inert human
body. It does its duty to its own interest and to the pauper dead when
the body is dropped with all celerity into the ground. The county is
philosophical: it says, "Poor devil, the world was unkind to him: he 'll
be glad to get out of it: we 'll be doing him a favour to put him at the
earliest moment out of sight and sound and feeling of the things that
wounded him. Then, too, the quicker the cheaper, and that will make it
easier on the taxpayers." This latter is so comforting! So the order is
written, the funeral is rushed through, and the county goes home to its
dinner, feeling well satisfied with itself,--so potent are the
consolations of philosophy at so many hundreds per year.

To this general order poor Margaret's funeral proved no exception. The
morning after her decease she was shrouded and laid in her cheap pine
coffin to await those last services which, in a provincial town, are the
meed of saint and sinner alike. The room in which she lay was very
clean,--unna