She watched it listlessly. Polly
had died at daybreak--didn't the letter say? Just like
that, the light rising redder and redder, the stars
disappearing, she wondered dully to herself how often
she would see the light coming, like this, and yet, and
yet, some time would be the last, and then what?
We shall be where suns are not,
A far serener clime.
came to her memory she knew not from whence. But she
shuddered at it. Polly's eyes, dazed, pleading like the
lamb's, rose before her; or was it that Other Face,
tender, thorn-crowned, that had been looking upon her in
love all these long years!
She spoke so kindly to Pearl when she went into the
kitchen that the little girl looked up apprehensively.
"Are ye not well, ma'am?" she asked quickly.
Mrs. Motherwell hesitated.
"I did not sleep very well," she said, at last.
"That's the mortgage," Pearl thought to herself.
"And when I did sleep, I had such dreadful dreams," Mrs.
Motherwell went on, strangely communicative.
"That looks more like the cancer," Pearl thought as she
stirred the porridge.
"We got bad news," Mrs. Motherwell said. "Polly is dead."
Pearl stopped stirring the porridge.
"When did she die," she asked eagerly.
"The morning before yesterday morning, about daylight."
Pearl made a rapid calculation. "Oh good!" she cried,
"goody--goody--goody! They were in time."
She saw her mistake in a moment, and hastily put her hand
over her mouth as if to prevent the unruly member from
further indiscretions.
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