“We can be out of here in less than two hours. Can you make it?”
“Yes,” she said, and drying her tears she began her hasty preparations. At the appointed time they were on their way.
A few hours later they stood by the bier of their aunt and looked upon her toil-worn hands resting now so quietly, and touched affectionately the cold brow wearing at last a look of peace and rest. The years seemed to fall away from Austin and Nell and they were a little boy and girl once more by the side of their own dear dead. How it all came back to them; and with what sympathy they mingled their own tears with those of the new-made orphans!
Philip Hill had loved his wife, and leaned upon her. She had been strength and protection to him. Every perplexity and burden that had ever en-tered the home had lain more heavily upon her than upon him. He had been a careless man, and the poor little home and the roughened hands forever still told a story of hardship and poverty which his conscience told him might have been lessened. But it was too late now, and he could only pour out his heart in tears and sighs.
He was glad to see Austin and felt that his capable hands would remove from him present responsibilities till the dead was laid to rest. And the children clung to both Nell and Austin as their hope.
It was soon over and the neighbors and friends gone. Austin and his sister were yet in the home, and tonight were having a talk with their uncle to learn if possible his plans.
“What will you do, Uncle? The children will need care and attention. Helen is too young to take the place of housekeeper. Have you any plans for the future?”
“Austin, I do not know. Everything is a blank, a wall of darkness before me. I do not know where to turn, nor what to do. I hate to see the children scattered, but I do not see how I can keep them together as your father did you children. Can you give me any suggestion for my first turn? What shall I do with the children now?”
Austin sat in deep thought. The idea of children being scattered among strangers, never knowing family ties with their own, was like a monster to him. What he had fought so hard to hold from his own, now was being poured out upon his helpless little cousins. A thought of help and succor came again and again to his mind, but he remembered how frail Nell was for any added burden. Her sharp eyes saw the struggle and doubt in his mind, and she knew his thoughts.
“Austin, couldn’t we take the three little ones home with us? Uncle could manage with the three older ones till he can make some arrangements.”