As for Lem, he watched her with a sort of dumb sorrow which was touching to see. When he first saw Mr. Stanton, he made a piteous appeal to him, "to get her well, not to let her die;" and when the gentleman told him, as Mrs. Bradford had done, that he could do nothing, and that life and death were in the hands of God, who saw fit to take Dolly to Himself, he refused to speak or think of any thing for his own good.
"Lem," said Dolly to him one day, "why don't you be glad I'm going to Jesus? I'm glad. I asked Him a many times to take me."
"'Cause I can't," said Lem, sullenly. "I thought we was goin' to get along fustrate if he looked after us; but 'taint no good gettin' to be engine driver now, if you're goin' away."
"Oh, yes, it is!" said Dolly; "and you'll be good, won't you, Lem, and not steal no more, and try to come to Jesus too; and I'll ask Him to help you like He helped me?"
"I don't see as it's much help to make you sick and let you die," said Lem.
"I don't know," said Dolly. "I guess, maybe it's just the bein' sick and dyin' is a good help. You know, Lem, if I hadn't a been sick and the little one found me there, I'd never a heard about Jesus, and I guess the best help He can give me is to take me right up there. I asked little one t'other day how she come in that out-of-the-way place, where I thought nobody never come 'cept for hidin', and she said the man brought her; but she thought Jesus sent him, so she could tell me 'bout Him. I guess He did too; I guess He knew I was lonesome and tired, and would like to be an angel. Don't you think that was help, Lem; and wasn't He good to let it come to me?"
This had been said with many a pause and very feebly, for Dolly was too weak to talk much now; and a sudden fit of coughing took away her breath before Lem could answer.
The dying child had never lost her interest in the poor, sickly marigolds in her pots. They had for some reason, too, thrived rather better in their new home, and the two buds Lem had pointed out to Mrs. Bradford had grown larger, and one of them was now opening into a ragged, stunted flower. But it was very beautiful in poor Dolly's eyes, for she had raised and cared for it herself; and no other blossom could be so lovely for her. But the more she loved and cherished her own plant, the more bitterly did she grieve over the destruction of the gardens of the two little girls who had been so kind and forgiving to her. She knew for what purpose they had taken so much pains with them, especially with the heliotrope and geranium which had been so ruthlessly torn to pieces; for Mrs. Porter had told her, and her sorrow and repentance were very bitter and very sincere.
One Sunday morning, towards the end of September, Maggie and Bessie went over with their mother to see her. She was lying with her sunken eyes fixed on the marigolds, which stood on a small table beside the bed; and, oh, how wan, white, and wasted she looked! Yet there was a look of perfect peace on the poor face; and, when the children came in, she turned to them with a bright smile.