The grey morning dawned gloomily on Chester's desolated home. Isabel awoke and looked around with dull and heavy eyes. The beauty of her young face was clouded by a night of sharp anxiety and broken rest. Mary sat opposite, leaning with both elbows on the table, and regarding the poor child with a haggard and sorrowful countenance.
"Has he not come back—oh, Mary, is he not here yet?"
Mary shook her head. "I have been awake all night, every moment. He has not come!"
"And I—how could I sleep with my poor father away, and mamma so ill?
I did not think that anything could make me sleep at such a time,
Mary!"
"But, you were so tired; oh, I was glad when your head drooped on the table; it looked so pitiful to see you growing paler and paler, while she kept muttering to herself. I was glad that you could sleep at all, Isabel."
"I feel now as if I should never sleep again," replied the child, looking at the covered plate where her father's supper had been standing all night. "He will never come back, Mary Fuller, I feel sure of it now!"
Mary did not answer—she only covered her eyes with one hand and sat still.
Isabel arose, took the covered plate in both her hands and placed it in the cupboard, weeping bitterly. This act showed even plainer than her words that she really did not expect to see her father again. She crept back to Mary, and, leaning upon her shoulder, began to cry with low and suppressed passion. Poor thing, it is a hard lesson when childhood first learns to curb its natural grief.
"What shall we do, Mary?" whispered the poor child, burying her wet face upon Mary's shoulder that received its burden unshrinkingly; "oh, what can we do?"
"Isabel," said Mary, solemnly, "what should we do if—if your father should be dead?"