oked just like that before he went to sleep," said the
eldest of the children, coming and peeping into the small waxen
face; and Gertrude gave a little involuntary shiver as she thought
of the four still forms lying sleeping upstairs, and wondered
whether this would make a fifth for the bearers to carry forth at
night.

Just as the dusk began to fall, there came the sound of a slight
parley without. Then the key turned in the house door, and the next
minute, to Gertrude's unspeakable relief, Dinah entered the room.

"My poor child, did you think I was never coming to you?"

"I did not know if you could," answered Gertrude. "Oh, tell me,
what must I do for all these little ones--and for the baby? Is he
dying too? It is so long since he has moved. I am afraid to look at
him lest I disturb him, but--but--"

Dinah bent over the little form, and lifted it gently from
Gertrude's arms.

"Poor little lamb, its troubles are all over," she said, after a
few moments. "The little ones often go like that--quite peacefully
and quietly. It has not suffered at all. It has been a gentle and
merciful release. You need not weep for it, my child."

"I think my tears are for the living rather than for the dead,"
answered Gertrude, with brimming eyes. "There are but three left
out of seven living yesterday, and what is to become of them?"

"We must report their case to the authorities. There are numbers of
poor children left thus orphaned, and it is hard to know what will
become of them. I will send at once to my brother-in-law, and
report the matter to him. He will know what it were best to do.
Meantime I shall remain here with you. Janet is busy next door. Her
patient is mending, and none besides in the house is sick. But oh,
the things I have seen and heard this day! There is not one living
now in the house to which I went first, and I have seen ten men and
women die since I saw you last.

"God alone knows how it is to end. It seems as though His hand were
outstretched, and as though the whole city were doomed!"

CHAPTER IX. JOSEPH'S PLAN.

"Ben, boy, I am sick to death of sitting at home doing naught, and
seeing naught of all the sights that be abroad, and of which men
are for ever speaking. What boots it to be alive, if one is buried
or shut up as we are? Art thou afraid to come forth? or shall I go
alone?"

"Where wilt thou go, brother?" asked Ben, looking up from a bit of
wood carving upon which he was engrossed,