"Mary, oh, Mary, she did not swallow the last. Come, come and help me!"
Mary sat down the water pitcher and went to Mrs. Chester. She bent down close to the motionless face, listening. You could see her cheek grow pale in the dim light, as she held her own breath, hoping to catch one flutter from those white and parted lips. She lifted her head at last, and turned her mournful eyes on Isabel.
The little girl looked imploringly upon her—she shed no tear—uttered no word; but fell, like a wounded bird, prone to the floor, and there stood poor Mary in the midst of death, utterly alone.
When the nurses came reeling up from their carouse, three lay dead upon those narrow cots besides Mrs. Chester, and two were dying.
"Go and call Crofts!" cried Mrs. Fuller, staggering from bed to bed, reckless and fierce. "Let us have the cots cleared—bring in the shrouds, I say. Tell Crofts we have plenty of use for his pine boxes to-night."
The other nurse obeyed her, muttering fiercely against the unevenness of the floor.
The coffins were brought in, and these two wretched women arranged the poor creatures they had murdered, for their pauper graves. They came to Mrs. Chester last, but Mary Fuller, who knelt by the bed-side with poor Isabel senseless at her feet, arose and stood firmly before her mother.
"You shall not touch her! You shall not even look at her!" cried the noble child—and with her trembling hand she drew the sheet over the features she had so dearly loved.
The woman glared fiercely upon the child. Drink had rendered her ferocious—she lifted her clenched hand, shaking it savagely, and an oath broke from her hot lips—an oath over the beautiful dead.
"I—I will put that on," said the child, pointing to the shroud which the nurse held crushed under her arm.