He beckoned, as he spoke, to the porter, who was standing at a little distance, talking to the crowd of natives who had arrived to clear the line, and the dead woman was lifted on to the litter, and covered with a rug belonging to the lady who had taken charge of the child. She watched the proceedings with a feeling of unspeakable sadness, and, as the melancholy burden was carried toward one of the cabs, she clasped the child closer to her breast, and tears stole down her cheeks.
The baby, cooing to her strange doll, looked up as they moved across the field. She put up one little hand and rubbed away a tear from the motherly face.
“No kye,” she said, in her pretty, lisping fashion. “Mardie dood—she no kye.”
The lady kissed the small lips.
“Mardie is a sweet angel,” she whispered; “and now she shall come with me to a pretty place and have some nice dinner.”
“Din-din,” said the child, nodding her head with its wealth of red-gold curls. “Mardie ’ungry. Mammie a din-din, too?”
The lady shivered.
“Yes, mammie will go to a pretty place, too,” she answered hurriedly.
When they reached the cab, the doctor came up to them.
“If you will allow me to suggest, The Plow is the best hotel. I would come with you, but I must drive straight to the infirmary. Give me the child for a moment while you get in. She has lost her hat, poor little thing; but the town is not far off, and the best place for her will be in bed.”