ld soon make
John Henry's wife well again, and now she was told that she had only a
few days to live.

She could not go upstairs with such news as that. So she bustled about
the kitchen, pretending to be busy, washing up the tea-things, and
sweeping the fireside, and stopping every now and then to wipe away the
tears that would come in her eyes. And all this time Poppy's mother was
waiting, and listening, and wondering why grandmother did not come to
tell her what the doctor had said.

At last she could wait no longer, but rapped on the floor with the stick
which grandmother had put by her bedside.

Slowly, very slowly, the old woman went upstairs. But even when she was
in the bedroom, she did not seem inclined to talk, but began to wash
Enoch and Elijah, and never turned her face towards her daughter-in-law,
lest she should see how tearful her eyes were.

'Grandmother,' said Poppy's mother at last, 'tell me what the doctor
said.'

'He won't let me take you away, my lass,' said grandmother, shortly.

'Does he think I shall not live long?' asked the sick woman. 'Tell me
what he said, grandmother, please.'

'He said you might perhaps live a week, my dear,' said grandmother,
bursting into tears, and rocking Enoch and Elijah in her arms.

Poppy's mother did not speak, but she did just what king Hezekiah did
when he got a similar message, she turned her face to the wall.
Grandmother did not dare to look at her for some time, and when she did
she saw that her pillow was wet with tears.

'Poor lass, poor lass!' she said tenderly; 'no wonder ye cannot help
fretting; it's a fearsome thing to die, it is indeed.'

'Oh, it isn't that, grandmother,' said Poppy's mother; 'it isn't that. I
was thinking about the poor children.'

'And what about the children, bless 'em?' said the old woman.

'Why, I'm afraid it will go hardly with them in the House,' said the
poor woman, beginning to cry afresh. 'They do say some of them old
nurses are not over-good to babies, and they think 'em such a lot of
trouble, poor little motherless dears! And there's Poppy, too; she's
been ever such a good little girl to me, and she'll feel so
lonesome-like in that big, rambling place. I don't suppose they'll let
her be with the babies, for all she loves them so.'

'Now, Polly, my dear,' said grandmother, starting from her seat, 'never
you say another word about that. If you think I'm going to let John
Henry's bairns go into the Workhouse, why,