"No one here?" questioned one of the officers, "only this little girl to watch over him?—this is strange!" And the three men paused in the midst of the room, gazing upon each other over their mournful burden.
"Smooth up the bed a little, and let us lay him there!" said the driver, becoming impatient with the delay.
"Not there—she will come back—she could not go far—on my bed—lay him here, on my bed and Isabel's. It is made up—no one slept in it last night!" exclaimed Mary, opening the door of her little room.
They laid poor Chester upon the bed that his noble benevolence had supplied to the orphan who stood weeping over him. The rustle of that poor straw, as it shrunk to meet his body, was a nobler tribute to his memory than a thousand minute guns could have been.
They were about to arrange his head upon the bolster, but Mary went into the next room, in haste, and brought forth the pillow which still revealed the pressure that Mrs. Chester had left upon it.
"Lay him upon her pillow," said the child. "He would have asked for it, I know."
Those stout men looked upon the child with a feeling of profound respect. They drew back, and allowed her to arrange the death-couch according to her own will. She could not bear the stiff and rigid position in which they had placed him, but laid the hands gently and naturally down. When she turned away, the cold look had been softened somewhat, and in the solemn repose of death there was blended the sweetness of that calm, deep slumber, when the soul is dreaming of Heaven.
The three men went forth, and Mary followed them, closing the door reverently after her.
"I must stay with him," she said, "Mrs. Chester and Isabel are gone; he must not be left alone, or I ought to go in search of them. She was very, very ill, and out of her head I am afraid, and poor Isabel is only a little girl that would not know what to do!"
"I will search for them," said one of the policemen, kindly. "Stay here till some one comes—I am far more certain to find them than such a little thing as you would be."