Still, she rose on Monday morning, did her work, and cared for the babies as usual. It seemed so cruelly lonesome with only her and Dan. Mrs. Murphy was very good to her, and begged her to go to the priest; but she listened in a weary, indifferent manner. If Bess was in purgatory, then she would like to go too. But in her heart she knew Bess wasn’t. She was just dead, and couldn’t be anywhere but in the ground.
She had never known any joyous animal life. Hers had been all work and loving service. There was nothing to buoy her up now, nothing to which she could look forward. She was too old, too experienced, to be a child, to share a child’s trivial joys.
Her mother questioned her closely about Owen. Hadn’t he never sneaked in for some clothes? Didn’t Patsey know where he was?
“I’ll ast him if he comes agen,” she said, as if even Owen was of no moment to her. “He hasn’t been here sence—sence that night.”
“Ye’s not half-witted, Dil Quinn, an’ you grow stupider every day! Sometime I’ll knock lightnin’ outen yer! An’ if ye dast to keep it from me that he kem’d home, I’d break yer neck, yer sassy trollope. He’ll be saunterin’ in some night, full o’ rags, an’ no place to go, an’ there be a pairty, now, I tell ye!”
But Owny knew when he was well off. Dan went to school regularly, and was much improved.
After the holidays the winter was hard. Work fell off, and babies were slow coming in. Mrs. Murphy’s little one took a severe cold, and was carried off with the croup. She gave up her rooms and went out to service. So poor Dil lost another friend.
One Sunday during the latter part of January, Dil summoned up pluck enough to go out for a walk. There had been three or four lovely days that suggested spring, bland airs and sunshine, and the indescribable thrill in the air that stirs with sudden longing.
Dil wandered over to Madison Square. Some one had given her mother a good warm cloak, quite modern. How Bess would have enjoyed seeing her dressed in it! But though the sun shone so gloriously, she was cold in body and soul, as if she could never be warm again. The leafless branches were full of swallows chirping, but the flowers were gone, the fountain silent. No one noted the solitary little figure sitting just where she had sat that happy afternoon.
“Oh,” she cried softly, while her heart swelled to breaking, and her eyes wandered southward, “do you know that Bess is dead, an’ we can’t never go to heaven together as we planned? I d’know’s I want to now. I jes’ want to die an’ be put in the ground. I wisht I could be laid ’long-side of her, an’ I’d stretch out my arms, an’ she’d come creepin’ to them, jes’ as she used. She’d know how to find me. An’ when you come back you can’t see her no more. Oh, ’f we only could ’a’ started that day! An’ mammy burned up Christiana an’ my beautiful picture, so I’m all alone. There ain’t nothin’ left,” and she sighed drearily.