"Oh, here is an empty bed—I thought it would not be long before we found something for her to lie on besides the floor. Go and call Crofts."
The younger nurse went out, and directly there came two men into the ward, bearing a rude pine coffin between them. They trod heavily along the floor, knocking the coffin now and then against a cot till it jarred the helpless inmate, and thus they carried it down the whole length of the ward. They deposited the rude thing close by the blanket on which Mrs. Chester lay, and then went out, leaving the women to relieve the bed of its mournful burden.
The younger nurse had brought with her a scant shroud, of the coarsest muslin, and there in the midst of the sick, one of the women put this grave garment on, while the other stealthily searched in the bosom of the corpse and under the pillow for any little valuable that the poor woman might have hoarded in her death-bed. After groping about awhile, the young nurse drew forth her hand with a low chuckle. It contained a bit of tissue paper, soiled and crumpled in a heap. A bank note! what else could it be? The two women looked at the paper and their eyes gleamed. It was not often that they found bank notes about the Bellevue paupers! How they longed to examine it then and there! But the sick were not all insensible, and the young woman thrust the treasure into her bosom, whispering as she stooped down to smooth the shroud:
"By and by—of course we go halves to-day!"
"That is fair and above board!" replied the other, folding the arms of the dead upon the pulseless bosom they had robbed, "there now, call in the men!"
Again those two men came tramping heavily among the sick. There was some bustle and a little joking as they placed the pauper corpse in its pine coffin; and when they bore it out one of the men inquired, in a voice that might have been heard half over the room, if there was much chance of their being wanted again within an hour or two.
The elder nurse looked around upon the cots, and answered that it was very likely, but that the next coffin must be longer—at least four inches longer!
The two women followed the coffin out, and when quite alone in the passage, fell to examining the value of their prize.
"There must be two bills," said the younger, beginning to unfold the little parcel, "what if each of them should be a five, now!"
These words were followed by a short and scornful laugh, accompanied by an oath, that most fearful thing on the lips of a woman. The scrap of soiled tissue paper unfolded a lock of grey hair.