e was
first-rate when I saw him at the hospital to-night." He whispered in
March's ear, at a chance he got in mounting the station stairs: "I didn't
like to tell you there at the house, but I guess you'd better know. They
had to take Lindau's arm off near the shoulder. Smashed all to pieces by
the clubbing."

In the house, vainly rich and foolishly unfit for them, the bereaved
family whom the Marches had just left lingered together, and tried to get
strength to part for the night. They were all spent with the fatigue that
comes from heaven to such misery as theirs, and they sat in a torpor in
which each waited for the other to move, to speak.

Christine moved, and Mela spoke. Christine rose and went out of the room
without saying a word, and they heard her going up-stairs. Then Mela
said:

"I reckon the rest of us better be goun' too, father. Here, let's git
mother started."

She put her arm round her mother, to lift her from her chair, but the old
man did not stir, and Mela called Mrs. Mandel from the next room. Between
them they raised her to her feet.

"Ain't there anybody agoin' to set up with it?" she asked, in her hoarse
pipe. "It appears like folks hain't got any feelin's in New York. Woon't
some o' the neighbors come and offer to set up, without waitin' to be
asked?"

"Oh, that's all right, mother. The men 'll attend to that. Don't you
bother any," Mela coaxed, and she kept her arm round her mother, with
tender patience.

"Why, Mely, child! I can't feel right to have it left to hirelin's so.
But there ain't anybody any more to see things done as they ought. If
Coonrod was on'y here--"

"Well, mother, you are pretty mixed!" said Mela, with a strong tendency
to break into her large guffaw. But she checked herself and said: "I know
just how you feel, though. It keeps acomun' and agoun'; and it's so and
it ain't so, all at once; that's the plague of it. Well, father! Ain't
you goun' to come?"

"I'm goin' to stay, Mela," said the old man, gently, without moving. "Get
your mother to bed, that's a good girl."

"You goin' to set up with him, Jacob?" asked the old woman.

"Yes, 'Liz'beth, I'll set up. You go to bed."

"Well, I will, Jacob. And I believe it 'll do you good to set up. I
wished I could set up with you; but I don't seem to have the stren'th I
did when the twins died. I must git my sleep, so's to--I don't like very
well to have you broke of your rest, Jacob, but there don't appear to be
anybo