irls in the lane below. Perhaps she
would have found her way down to them, but Martha had been cross with her
all the morning, and the child's little spirit was frightened with her
scolding. She turned back to the cabin, sobbing, for the north wind blew
coldly upon her; and then she must have caught sight of the shaft, where
Stephen had been throwing stones down for her the night before, without a
thought of the little one trying to pursue the dangerous game alone. As
Martha came over the cinder-hill, her eyes fell upon little Nan, rosy,
laughing, screaming with delight as her tiny hands lifted a large stone
high above her curly head, while she bent over the unguarded margin of
the pit. But before Martha could move in her agony of terror, the heavy
stone dropped from her small fingers, and Nan, little Nan, with her rosy,
laughing face, had fallen after it.

Martha never forgot that moment. As if with a sudden awaking of memory,
there flashed across her mind all the child's simple, winning ways. She
seemed to see her dying mother again, laying the helpless baby in her
arms, and bidding her to be a mother to it. She heard her father's last
charge to take care of little Nan, when he also was passing away. Her own
wicked carelessness and neglect, Stephen's terrible sorrow if little Nan
should be dead, all the woeful consequences of her fault, were stamped
upon her heart with a sudden and very bitter stroke. Those who were
watching her from the lane saw her stand as if transfixed for a moment;
and then a piercing scream, which made every one within hearing start
with terror, rang through the frosty air, as Martha sprang forward to the
mouth of the old pit, and, peering down its dark and narrow depths, could
just discern a little white figure lying motionless at the bottom of the
shaft.

CHAPTER XIV.

A BROTHER'S GRIEF.

In a very short time all the people at work on the surface of the mine
knew that Stephen Fern's little sister was dead--lying dead in the very
pit where he was then labouring for her, with the spirit and strength and
love of a father rather than a brother. Every face was overcast and
grave; and many of the boys and girls were weeping, for little Nan had
endeared herself to them all since she came to live at the cinder-hill
cabin. Tim felt faint and heart-sick, almost wishing he could have
perished in the child's stead, for poor Stephen's sake; but he had to
rouse himself, for one of the banksmen w