Dolly nodded, with a piteous face.
Miles's thin fingers gripped her hand fast. "Dolly, she isn't—dead?" His voice rose high and frightened.
"Oh, you mustn't, Miles," Dolly gasped. "And I can't tell you. They said I must not speak of her to you. Oh, Miles, Miles, she has been dead these four days!"
They carried Dolly away, the mischief done, and Miles, hiding his head beneath the bedclothes, cried so long as strength was in him. Then he lay watching the red and orange streaks that flashed before his tight-closed eyes, and, thinking how stuffy it was beneath the coverlets, wondered if perhaps he would not smother. He hoped he would, so he had a first sensation of fretful disappointment, when some one uncovered his head; and then, as he caught the clearer air on his face and looked up at Captain Standish, felt vaguely comforted.
"Drink you this, lad," spoke the Captain, gruffly, yet, Miles realized, with vast pity in his tone. "Then sleep."
"I'll—try," swallowed Miles.
"That's well. Bear it soldierly, as we all must."
"Like a soldier," Miles repeated over and over to himself, and, shutting his lips, pressed his head into the bolster, till, worn-out, he slept.
When he awoke, the realization of his loss returned, keen almost as ever; but he was a healthy lad, so inevitably strength came back to him, and with it, little by little, as he mastered it in silence, his grief abated. Those about him were kind, too, and did what they could to comfort him. Captain Standish himself cared for him; Ned Lister and Giles visited him often; and once they even let poor, guilty Dolly come to see him. She fetched in her arms fat Solomon, who yowled so piteously that, just inside the door, Doctor Fuller, who was up and able to tend his sick again, made her put him down, whereupon the cat fled home, fast as four legs could bear him.
"'Twas such a pity when I fetched him so far to see you," Dolly lamented to Miles, as she exhibited the scratches on her hands, "but he will go home safe to Mistress Brewster's house. He likes it there, and so do I. I am going to live there always with Love and Wrestling and Priscilla Mullins. She made me a poppet of a piece of scarlet cloth, and I called it after her. I shall bring it to show you next time, though you'll laugh at it, because you are a boy. Indeed, I do like it at Mistress Brewster's. If only mammy and daddy were there too!" she added, in a lower tone.