id the girl meekly. "Shall I go and ask
mother?"

The boy was sick at her obstinacy.

"Mother's dead, I tell you; that means she can't hear anything. It's
no use talking to her; but I know. You must stop here, and if father
wakes you run out of the house and call `Police!' and I will go now
and tell a policeman now."

"And what happens then?" she asked, with round eyes at her brother's
wisdom.

"Oh, they come and take him away to prison. And then they put a rope
round his neck and hang him like Haman, and he goes to hell."

"Wha-at! Do they kill him?"

"Because he's a murderer. They always do."

"Oh, don't let's tell them! Don't let's tell them!" she
screamed.

"Shut up!" said the boy, "or he'll wake up. We must tell them, or we
go to hell--both of us."

But his sister did not collapse at this awful threat, as he expected,
though the tears were rolling down her face. "Don't let's tell them,"
she sobbed.

"You're a horrid girl, and you'll go to hell," said the boy, in
disgust. But the silence was only broken by her sobbing. "I tell you
he killed mother dead. You didn't cry a bit for mother; I did."

"Oh, let's ask mother! Let's ask mother! I know she won't want father
to go to hell. Let's ask mother!"

"Mother's dead, and can't hear, you stupid," said the boy. "I keep on
telling you. Come up and look."

They were both a little awed in mother's room. It was so quiet, and
mother looked so funny. And first the girl shouted, and then the boy,
and then they shouted both together, but nothing happened. The echoes
made them frightened.

"Perhaps she's asleep," the girl said; so her brother pinched one of
mother's hands--the white one, not the red one--but nothing
happened, so mother was dead.

"Has she gone to hell?" whispered the girl.

"No! she's gone to heaven, because she's good. Only wicked people go
to hell. And now I must go and tell the policeman. Don't you tell
father where I've gone if he wakes up, or he'll run away before the
policeman comes."

"Why?"

"So as not to go to hell," said the boy, with certainty; and they
went downstairs together, the little mind of the girl being much
perturbed because she was so wicked. What would mother say tomorrow
if she had done wrong?

The boy put on his sailor hat in the hall. "You must go in there and
watch," he said, nodding in the direction of the sitting-room. "I
shall run all the way."

The door banged, and she heard his steps down the path, and