"Master, master!" he cried. "If the Lord Jesus is here he can save her.
Ask him, master."
But old Oliver paid no heed to him. For the child who was passing away from him he was all eye and ear, watching and listening as keenly as in his best and strongest days; but he was blind and deaf to everything else around him. Tony's voice could not reach his brain.
"Will gan-pa come rere?" whispered the failing and faltering voice of
Dolly.
"Very soon," he answered; a radiant smile coming to his face, which made her smile as her eyes caught the glory of it. "Very, very soon, my little love. You'll be there to meet me when I come."
"Dolly'll watch for gan-pa," she murmured, with long pauses between the words, which seemed to drop one by one upon Tony's ear; "and Dolly'll watch at the door for Tony to come home; and she'll fret ever so if he never comes."
Tony felt her stir restlessly under his arm, and stretch her tiny limbs upon the bed as if she were very tired, and the languid eyelids drooped slowly till they quite hid her blue eyes, and she sighed softly as children sigh when they fall asleep, weary of their play. Old Oliver laid his shaking hand tenderly upon her head.
"Dear Lord!" he said, "take my little love to thyself. I give her up to thee."
It seemed to Tony as if a thick mist of darkness fell all about him, and as if he were sinking down, down, very low into some horrible pit where he would never see the light of day again. But by-and-bye he came to himself, and found old Oliver sobbing in short, heavy sobs, and swaying himself to and fro, while Beppo was licking Dolly's hand, and barking with a sharp, quiet bark, as he had been wont to do when he wanted her to play with him. The child's small features were quite still, but there was an awful smile upon them such as there had never been before, and Tony could not bear to look upon it. He crossed her tiny hands lightly over one another upon her breast, and then he lifted Beppo away gently, and drew the bed-clothes about her, so as to hide her smiling face.
"Master," he cried, "master, is she gone?"
Old Oliver only answered by a deep moan; and Tony put his arm about him, and raised him up.