Dil was saved from answering by the advent of a throng of neighbors. The room seemed so warm, and there was such a flurry, she dropped on the lounge faint and breathless.

"Go to bed, Dan," said his mother.

Dil rose again and opened the door. The cold air, close and vile as it was, felt grateful.

"Go up-stairs a bit in Mrs. Murphy's;" and though the permission was a command, Dil went gratefully.

Mrs. Murphy sat sewing to make up for lost time. Her little girl was asleep in the cradle. She had improved since cooler weather had set in.

The door of one room was shut. The old chintz-covered Boston rocker was empty.

"I couldn't stay to see them all lookin' at her," she exclaimed tremulously, as she almost tottered across the room.

"No, dear." Mrs. Murphy took her in her arms. "Ye look like a ghost. But Bess is main pritty, an' it's a custom. Will ye sit here?"

Dil shuddered as she looked at the empty chair where Mrs. Bolan used to sit.

"No; I'll take the stool. I just want to be a bit still like an' think.

I couldn't talk 'bout _her_, you know."

"Yes, dear," with kindly sympathy.

Dil dropped on a box stool, leaning her folded arms on a chair. Mrs.

Murphy took up her sewing again. She longed to comfort, but she was sore afraid the two lorn souls were wandering about purgatory. She had a little money of Mrs. Bolan's that she meant to spend in ma.s.ses. But who would pay for a ma.s.s for Bessy Quinn's soul? And she had never been baptized. The ignorant, kindly woman was sore distressed.

Dil seemed to look through the floor and see the picture down-stairs.

All her sense of possession rose in bitter revolt. Yet now she was helpless to establish her supreme right. Her mother had grudged Bess the frail, feeble spark of life; she alone had cared for her, loved her, protected her, and she was shut out, sent away. Now that Bess needed no care and lay there quiet, they could come and pity her.

Presently more tranquil thoughts came. Even her mother could not do anything to hurt Bess. She was safe at last.

There had been so much repression and self-control in Dil's short life, that it made her seem apathetic now. And yet, slowly as the poor pulses beat, there was a strange inward fire and stir, as if she must do something. A curious elusiveness shrouded the duty or work, and yet it kept hovering before her. Oh, what was it?

Did she fall asleep, and was it a vision, a vague remembrance of something she had heard? Bess was not dead, but in a strange, strange sleep. Once there had been a little girl in just this sleep, and One had come-yes, she would get up-about midnight these strange charms worked.

She would get up and go softly over to Bess. She would take the little hand in hers; she would kiss the pale, still lips, and say, "Bess, my darling, wake up. I can't live without you. You have had such a nice long rest. Open your eyes an' look at me. Bess, dear, you remember we are to go to heaven in the spring. _He_ will be waitin' for us, an'

wonderin' why we don't come. He is goin' to fight the giants, to show us the way, an' row us over the river to the pallis."

Then the eyes would open blue as the summer sky, the lips would smile, the little hands reach out and grow warm. There would be a strange quiver all through the body, and Bess would sit up and be alive once more. Oh, the glad cry of joy! Oh, the wordless, exquisite rapture of that moment! And Bess, in some mysterious way, would be better, stronger, and the days would fly by until the blessed spring came.

Mrs. Murphy touched her, and roused her from this trance of delight. She heard her mother's voice and started.

"It's a nice sleep ye've had," said Mrs. Murphy's kindly voice. "An'

it's full bedtime, an' past. They've all gone, an' yer mother wants ye."

Dil groped her way down-stairs. There was a vicious smell of beer and kerosene-smoke in the warm room.

"It's time ye were in bed," said her mother. "Ye kin sleep in there,"

indicating her own room with a nod; "fer I'll not sleep the night with me child lyin' dead in the house. Bridget Malone has kem to stay wid me.

We'll jist sit up."

"O mother," cried Dil, aghast, "let me sleep in my own room! I'd rather be there with Bess."

"Is the colleen's head turned wid grafe? Sleepin' wid a corpse! Who iver heerd of sich a thing? Indade ye'll not, miss! Go to bed at wunst, an'

not a word outen you."

Her first impulse was to defy the woman looming up so tall and authoritative. But the shrewd sense that comes early to the children of poverty restrained her. She would be worsted in the end, so she went reluctantly. Had she dreamed? No, it must be true. She _could_ waken Bess. Again the uplifting hope took possession of her. She seemed wafted away to a beautiful country with Bess. So absorbing was the vision that it filled her with a certainty beyond the faintest doubt. She did not even take off her dress, but lay there wide-eyed and rapturous.

After a while the chatter ceased and the snoring began. How still it was everywhere! But Dil was not afraid.

X-IN THE DESERT ALONE

Dilsey Quinn rose with a peculiar lightness of heart, and seemed walking on air. A curious tingle sped through her nerves, and her eyes had a strange light of their own. She pushed the door open and looked out cautiously. Her mother was on the lounge. Bridget sat by the stove, her chair tilted back against the door-jamb. The lamp had been turned down a little, the stove-lid lifted; and it made a strange, soft semicircle on the ceiling, such as Dil had seen around the heads in pictures when she had stolen a glance at the show windows.

The silence, for that impressed her, in spite of snoring in different keys, and the weird aspect, made the room instinct with supernatural life. Dil did not understand this, but she felt it, and was filled and possessed by that exaltation of mysterious faith. She walked softly but fearlessly across the room,-if she could open the door without Bridget hearing.

John Travis should have seen her at that moment, with the unearthly radiance on her face, the uplifted confident eyes.

Her small hand was on the k.n.o.b. She opened the door-a moment more-

Alas! Bridget had an impression, and sprang up. Seeing the figure she uttered a wild shriek.

"A banshee! A banshee!" she cried in a spasm of terror.

Dil stood rooted to the spot. Mrs. Quinn sprang across the room.

"Hould yer murtherin' tongue!" she cried. "Why-it's Dil," seizing her by the shoulder. "Whativer are ye doin', walkin' in yer slape an' rousin'

the house? An' yer' a fool, Bridget!"

Bridget Malone stared at the small grayish figure, unconvinced.

"Wake up, ye omadhoun!" and the mother shook Dil fiercely. "Ye can't do nothin' fer the child. Let her rist in peace; she's better off nor she's been this many a day."

"O Mrs. Quinn, don't be hard on the poor gurrul. She's bin dreamin' af the little wan, bein' so used to tindin' on her all hours af the night.

But I thought sure it was Bess's ghost, bein' but half awake mesilf."

"Wid no legs to walk on!" was the sarcastic rejoinder.

"As af a ghost had need of legs! An' I won't be sittin' there by the dure-"

"Git back to yer bed, Dil, an' we won't have no more sich capers in the dead o' night, frightin' folks out of their sinsis."

She led Dil roughly back to her bed. Then for safe keeping she slipped the chair back just under the k.n.o.b, and Dil was a prisoner in a black hole, a small improvement on that of Calcutta.

A whirlwind of pa.s.sion swept over Dilsey Quinn-a pitiful, helpless pa.s.sion. She could have screamed, she could have torn the bed-clothes to pieces, or stamped in that uncontrollable rage and disappointment. But she knew her mother would beat her, and she was too sore and helpless to be banged about.