I'd like to 'ave it in
my 'and, miss."
The nurse put it in her hand. She was only a young nurse
and her face was wet with tears.
"It's like 'avin' my mother's 'and, miss, it is," she
murmured softly. "Ye wouldn't mind the dark if ye 'ad
yer mother's 'and, would ye, miss?"
And then the nurse took Polly's throbbing head in her
strong young arms, and soothed its restless tossing with
her cool soft touch, and told her through her tears of
that other Friend, who would go with her all the way.
"I'm that 'appy, miss," Polly murmured faintly. "It's
like I was goin' 'ome. Say that again about the valley,"
and the nurse repeated tenderly that promise of incomparable
sweetness:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me,
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
"It's just like 'avin' mother's 'and to 'old the little
silky one," Polly murmured sleepily.
The nurse put the poppies beside Polly's face on the
pillow, and drawing a screen around her went on to the
next patient. A case of urgent need detained her at the
other end of the ward, and it was not until the dawn was
shining blue in the windows that she came back on her
rounds.
Polly lay just as she had left her. The crimson petals
lay thick upon her face and hair. The homesickness and
redness of weeping had gone forever from her eyes, for
they were looking now upon the King in his beauty! In
her hand, now cold and waxen, she held one little silky
poppy, red with edges of white.
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