The English Orphans | Page 9

were now left friendless.
"There will be no trouble," said one, "in finding a place for Ella, she is so bright and handsome, but as for Mary, I am afraid she'll have to go to the poor-house."
"Were I in a condition to take either," replied Mrs. Johnson, "I should prefer Mary to her sister, for in my estimation she is much the best girl; but there is the baby, who must go wherever Mary does, unless she can be persuaded to leave her."
Before any one could reply to this remark, Mary, who had overheard every word, came forward, and laying her face on Mrs. Johnson's lap, sobbed out, "Let me go with Alice, I told mother I would."
Billy Bender, who all this while had been standing by the door, now gave a peculiar whistle, which with him was ominous of some new idea, and turning on his heel started for home, never once thinking, until he reached it, that his mother more than six hours before had sent him in great haste for the physician. On entering the house, he found her, as we expected, rolled up in bed, apparently in the last stage of scarlet fever; but before she could reproach him, he said "Mother, have you heard the news?"
Mrs. Bender had a particular love for news, and now for getting "how near to death's door" she had been, she eagerly demanded, "What news? What has happened?"
When Billy told her of the sudden death of Mrs. Howard and Frank, an expression of "What? That all?" passed over her face, and she said, "Dear me, and so the poor critter's gone? Hand me my snuff, Billy. Both died last night, did they? Hain't you nothin' else to tell?"
"Yes, Mary Judson and Ella Campbell, too, are dead."
Mrs. Bender, who like many others, courted the favor of the wealthy, and tried to fancy herself on intimate terms with them, no sooner heard of Mrs. Campbell's affliction, than her own dangerous symptoms were forgotten, and springing up she exclaimed, "Ella Campbell dead! What'll her mother do? I must go to her right away. Hand me my double gown there in the closet, and give me my lace cap in the lower draw, and mind you have the tea-kettle biled agin I get back."
"But, mother," said Billy, as he prepared to obey her, "Mrs. Campbell is rich, and there are enough who will pity her. If you go any where, suppose you stop at Mrs. Howard's, and comfort poor Mary, who cries all the time because she and Alice have got to go to the poor-house."
"Of course they'll go there, and they orto be thankful they've got so good a place--Get away.--That ain't my double gown;--that's a cloak. Don't you know a cloak from a double gown?"
"Yes, yes," said Billy, whose mind was not upon his mother's toilet--"but," he continued, "I want to ask you, can't we,--couldn't you take them for a few days, and perhaps something may turn up."
"William Bender," said the highly astonished lady what can you mean? A poor sick woman like me, with one foot in the grave, take the charge of three pauper children! I shan't do it, and you needn't think of it."
"But, mother," persisted Billy, who could generally coax her to do as he liked, "it's only for a few days, and they'll not be much trouble or expense, for I'll work enough harder to make it up."
"I have said no once, William Bender, and when I say no, I mean no," was the answer.
Billy knew she would be less decided the next time the subject was broached, so for the present, he dropped it, and taking his cap he returned to Mrs. Howard's, while his mother started for Mrs. Campbell's.
Next morning between the hours of nine and ten, the tolling bell sent forth its sad summons, and ere long a few of the villagers were moving towards the brown cottage, where in the same plain coffin slept the mother and her only boy. Near them sat Ella, occasionally looking with childish curiosity at the strangers around her, or leaning forward to peep at the tips of the new morocco shoes which Mrs. Johnson had kindly given her; then, when her eye fell upon the coffin, she would burst into such an agony of weeping that many of the villagers also wept in sympathy, and as they stroked her soft hair, thought, "how much more she loved her mother than did Mary," who, without a tear upon her cheek, sat there immovable, gazing fixedly upon the marble face of her mother. Alice was not present, for Billy had not only succeeded in winning his mother's consent to take the children for a few days, but he had also coaxed her to say that Alice might come before the