Up to this railing pressed the want-stricken crowd, the strong and healthy bustling and crowding back the fallen and infirm. Here old women struggled in the human tide, some casting fierce and quarrelsome glances at each other, others shrinking back with tears in their eyes, unequal to the coarse strife. Here, too, were men lean and gaunt with the hunger of a long sea voyage, elbowed aside by some brawny armed woman, who clamored loudly of the children she had left fast locked up in her little place, that she could but just pay the rent for. Here, too, were young girls, children with an aged, worn look, like the fruit that withers to half its size before it ripens. Most heartrending of all, persons of real refinement were mingled up with this rude mass; poor wretches who had indeed seen better days, and their helpless, broken-hearted looks, the remnants of early sensitiveness, that still clung around them, was pitiful to behold.

The stranger saw that upon the outskirts of the crowd these persons always lingered, waiting patiently till the coarse and strong were served. Outstretched upon the benches near the walls, and resting upon their bundles, were eight or ten sick men, with the fever upon them, waiting for the van which was to convey them to Bellevue.

Through all this misery, huddled and jostling together, our good Samaritan must force his way; for when he asked for the Commissioner, the people pointed their lank fingers toward a door within the railing, and between himself and that was all this crowd of hungry beings.

"Let me pass, will you? Let me pass," he said, pale with the effects of the scene, but speaking in a gentle tone.

"And why should you pass? Wait your turn like the rest of us!" said a harsh-featured woman, turning fiercely upon him. "Is't because you've a fine coat on that you'd put before your bethers, I'd be liking to know?"

The stranger drew back. With all his benevolence he could not breast that rough wave of human life, which dashes weekly against the steps of our Alms House.

"Make room—make room there. What does the gentleman want? Make room, I say!"

It was the voice of a clerk, who, casting his eyes over the crowd, had seen the stranger.

The people did not fall back, but they huddled close together, with their heads turned and gazing upon the stranger, some muttering fiercely, others taking advantage of the moment to crowd closer to the railing. Thus a passage was made, and the stranger made his way through a little gate up to the platform, where the attentive clerk came forward to learn his business.

"Oh, you should have passed on to the next entrance. It is difficult to get along in this room on Saturdays," he said, after the stranger had unfolded his errand. "You will find the Commissioner in his office," and the clerk courteously opened a door.

The stranger entered a large, airy room, furnished as most public offices are, with the most hideous carpets and the stiffest looking chairs; in this instance there was a sofa that seemed to have been for years the pauper inmate of some furniture store, and to have been transferred from thence to the City Poor House, when the owners became tired of keeping it as a private charity.

Many persons were in the office, two or three women occupied the sofa, one of them weeping bitterly. Half a score of men, some from the country, others belonging to the institution, were grouped about the room reading newspapers, conversing, or waiting patiently for an opportunity to transact the business which brought them there.

A large table covered with dark cloth ran along one end of the room, around which stood half a dozen chairs more commodious than the rest, two of them occupied by the head clerks of the department, and in one, before which stood a small writing-desk, sat the Commissioner.

He was a slight, active man, with eyes like an eagle's; his features were finely cut, and you could read each thought as it kindled over the dark surface of his face.

By the side of the Commissioner sat an old woman, talking in a low voice and weeping bitterly. You could see by the expression of the forehead, and by the faint changes of a countenance which no habit of self-control could entirely subdue, that the tale which this poor old creature poured into his ear was one of bitter sorrow. His dark eyes were bent thoughtfully on the table, and a look of deep commiseration lay upon his features as she continued her low and broken narrative.

This man was a benefactor to the poor. Sights of distress, even when they become habitual, had no power to damp his kindly sympathies. Yet while generous to the poor, he was faithful to the people.

At length the Commissioner looked up. You could see by the sudden kindling of his face, that he had bethought himself of some means by which this old woman might be benefited. He addressed her in a low but cheering voice. The poor old creature lifted her head, the tears still hung amid the wrinkles in her cheek; but over her withered lips there came a smile. The Commissioner reached out his hand, she changed her staff, leaned upon it with her left hand, and half timidly held out the other. You could see by the brightening of those aged eyes, and by the increased vigor of her footsteps as she left the room, how like a cordial this evidence of sympathy in her distress had cheered her aged heart.

The stranger whom we have introduced saw all this, and his heart warmed alike to the old woman and to the man who had comforted her. He approached the table, and could hardly refrain from holding out his hand to the Commissioner, so surely do truthful feelings vibrate to the good acts that they witness.

Had you seen those two men as they sat down together, you might have supposed that they had been old friends for twenty years.

The stranger told his story in few words, for he saw by the business appearance of the office that it was no place for long speeches. The Commissioner listened attentively.

"Where is the poor woman now?" he questioned, when the man paused in his narrative.

"She is waiting in the street—I brought her with me."

"I will see her myself: one minute and I am ready."

The Commissioner took up his hat, crossed the room, spoke a few words to the woman who sat weeping on the sofa, told an old man who stood waiting by the door that he would return in a very few minutes and attend to him, then with a light, active step he left the room, followed by the stranger.

They found Mrs. Chester in the carriage, grasping the cushion beneath her head with both hands, and muttering wildly to herself. The last few hours had brought her disease into its most malignant state. She was incapable of a single connected thought.

The Commissioner stepped into the carriage and helped to arrange the cushions.

"She is delirious; it is the fever. Typhus, I should think, in its worst form," he said. "She must have prompt care."

"She must, indeed," replied the stranger. "The noise, the hot sun, all are making her worse."

"And you do not know her name?"

"No; she has muttered over several names, but I could not tell which was hers."

"Nor her home, of course?"

"No; I found her in the street as I have told you."

"It is strange. She seems like an American. It is a pity to send her to the hospital, but I can do no better."

"You will send her there!" exclaimed the stranger, joyfully, "The policeman talked of the Tombs."

"No, no, she is no person for that, I am certain," exclaimed the Commissioner. "I only wish we had the power of doing more than can be expected at Bellevue; but certainly she shall go to no worse place than that."

"Oh, thank you!" said the stranger, gratefully.

"I will write out an order, with a few lines to the resident physician at Bellevue. Nothing more can be done, I am afraid."

"Oh, that is a great deal—everything, in fact—of course she will have proper attention in an institution where you have control."

The Commissioner looked grave, but did not answer that over the Bellevue Hospital his power was merely a name—that he could grant supplies and give directions, but had no real authority over subordinates appointed by the Common Council, and could not, for the most flagrant misconduct, discharge the lowest man about the department of which he was the bonded and responsible head. Shackled in his actions and even in his speech, this truly efficient and good man would pledge himself to nothing, so he merely said:

"Will you, sir—you who have done so much—conduct this poor woman yourself to Bellevue? The van will go up soon, but she does not seem of the usual class."

"I will go with her, of course," replied the stranger, resuming his seat in the carriage with benevolent alacrity, while the Commissioner returned to his office and hastily wrote a letter to the resident physician, beseeching him to bestow especial care on the unknown patient who seemed so ill, and so completely alone in the world.



CHAPTER XIV.

BELLEVUE AND A NEW INMATE.

A gloomy home for one like this; So pure, so gentle and so fair,— Must her sweet life, in weariness, Go out for lack of human care?

The carriage which bore Mrs. Chester paused before the gates at Bellevue. The gloomy and prison-like buildings loomed in heavy and sombre masses before the stranger, as he leaned from the carriage to deliver his order to the gatekeeper. The Hospital, with its walls of dark stone blackened by age, its sombre wings sweeping out from the main building and lowering above the massive walls, struck him with a feeling of gloom. It seemed like a prison that he was entering. The Hospitals were drear to him, and the dull, heavy atmosphere seemed full of contagion. He looked at the poor creature thus unconsciously brought there, perhaps to die, and his heart swelled with compassion.

The gate swung open, and down a paved causeway leading to the water, bounded on one side by a high stone wall, and on the other by a bakery and various workshops belonging to the institutions, the carriage was driven. The wharf in which this causeway terminated, was full of lounging inmates; some were attempting to fish in the turbid water; others leaning half asleep against the wall, and some were grouped together, not in conversation, but basking lazily in the sunshine.

Before it reached this wharf the carriage turned and was driven through an iron-studded gate, into an open and paved court that ran along the front of the main Alms House. The hospitals were some distance back of this building, but here the sick and dying must be brought first, for their names were to be registered in the Alms House books before they could be permitted to die in peace.

As the carriage drove in, up came the swarm of idlers from the wharf, dragging themselves heavily along, laughing stupidly at the ponderous gambols and grimaces of a huge idiot boy, who, on seeing a new arrival, rolled rather than walked up from the water with his hand extended, crying out—money—money. It was all the language the poor creature possessed. He had learned to beg, and that was knowledge enough for him. In everything else he was the merest animal that crawled the earth. Yet, the other paupers followed him as they would have chased a dog or tame animal of any kind, whose gambols broke the monotony of their idleness.

Up came this idiot boy to the carriage, leering in upon its inmates, and rolling from side to side, with his hand out, mumbling that one word over and over between his heavy lips: and up came the gang of paupers, gazing in also with stupid curiosity.

It was well for Jane Chester that she could neither see nor hear all this—that the fever had grown strong enough to shut out all the real world to her heated senses! As it was, the sight of these miserable objects did create some new and more harrowing pain. She began to murmur of the torment to which she had been consigned—of the strange, heavy fiends so unwieldy and coarse that had taken her in charge. Every event of that fearful day was absolutely thrusting her a step nearer to the grave.

Just as the driver had dismounted from his seat and was about to open the door, the Alms House van came tumbling along the pavement and into the court with another freight of misery. Along by the carriage and nearer to the entrance rolled the ponderous black vehicle, and out from its tomb-like depths were taken forth the men and women, that an hour before had been lying so helplessly on the benches at the Commissioner's office.

One by one these poor creatures were carried up the steps, and after them rolled the idiot, calling out—money, money—as if the emigrants whom England consigns to our charity, had anything but their own miserable lives to give away.

And now with the heat, the noise, and the motion of the carriage, the poor invalid became almost frantic. She struggled with the stranger—she called wildly for Chester—and would have cast herself headlong to the pavement, for in her hallucination she fancied that the pauper gang were carrying away her husband.

They bore her into the Alms House in a fit of momentary exhaustion.

Her name and history was a blank in the Alms House books. Her lips were speechless—her eyes closed. They only knew that she was nameless, homeless; and thus was her entrance registered.

And now came two men to carry her to the hospital. One was old, with grey hairs, who tottered beneath his burden; and the other a pale lad, who had just recovered from the fever. Out through the back entrance, down a flight of steps into the hot sunshine again, they bore the helpless woman, her garments sweeping the pavement, and her pale hand sometimes striking the stones as they passed along.

But there was no rest for her yet; another registering was to be made. In the Hospital office a pauper clerk had charge, and to his investigation the invalid must be consigned. He was no physician, certainly; but the hospital was divided into wards, each ward having its own class of diseases. It was this man's prerogative to decide what particular malady afflicted each patient, and to assign the proper ward. The two men placed Mrs. Chester in a chair, and the stranger stood behind it supporting her head upon his arm.

The clerk had entered the blank order upon his books, and now came forward to examine the patient.

"Put out your tongue?"

The order was given in a peremptory tone, worthy the captain of a Down-East militia company. Poor Mrs. Chester opened her wild eyes and looked at the man.

"Your tongue, woman! open your mouth—don't you hear?"

Jane Chester unclosed her parched lips and revealed her tongue. The edges were red, as if they had been dipped in blood; and down the centre, like an arrow, lay the dark incrustations peculiar to ship fever.

The clerk shook his head, and laid his hand upon the sinking pulse.

"Low, very low. Just gone of consumption—no doubt of it—phthisis pulmonalis—a bad case—very. Take her to the wing!"

"I should doubt, if you are not a physician, sir," said the stranger, mildly, "I should venture to doubt, if this lady is not suffering from fever. Not half an hour ago her pulse could hardly be counted; now you feel that each beat threatens to be the last! These terrible changes—do they bespeak consumption?"

"I have pronounced upon her case!" replied the clerk, "but it makes no difference. Let her go to the fever ward. If the doctor don't agree with your opinion, sir, she can be sent to the wing!"

"I am no physician, but she requires prompt care!" interposed the stranger.

"Then you are not an M. D.," cried the clerk, with a look of annoyance that he should have yielded to anything less than a professional man.

"No, but it is quite certain that all this moving about from place to place is killing the poor lady. She requires the greatest tranquillity, I am sure!"

"Well, well, take her up to number ten," said the clerk, addressing the persons who had brought Mrs. Chester in. "The doctor will see to her when he goes his rounds!"

The two men raised Mrs. Chester in their arms, and carried her up a flight of broad stairs and through a neighboring passage, till the stranger, who looked earnestly after them, could no longer detect the faint struggle with which she sought to free herself, or hear the moan as it trembled on her pallid lips.

The stranger drew a deep breath as she disappeared, and turned back to the office greatly oppressed by all that he saw. The clerk was leaning back in his chair, drumming with his fingers upon the seat. Inured to an atmosphere of misery, he felt but little of the painful compassion, the mingled horror and pity which almost overwhelmed that benevolent man.

"You are sure, quite sure, that this poor lady will be cared for," said the kind man, addressing the clerk. "Here is money, I would give more, but am some distance from home and may require all that I have—see that she wants for no little comfort that can be bought!"

The clerk's eye brightened as he saw the money.

"Oh, be sure, sir, she shall have every care."

"I have a letter for the resident physician—where can he be found?"

"Oh, he has just started for the island in his boat. The aldermen and their families dine at the Insane Asylum, and he has gone with them. You might have seen his yellow flag on the water as you came in."

"And when will he return to the Hospital?"

"Oh, in a day or two; his rooms are in the other building, but he usually walks over the wards once or twice a week!"

"Once or twice a week! Why I heard that the ship fever was raging here—that the hospitals were crowded, and many of your doctors sick!"

"Well, no one disputes that the hospitals are crowded—half the patients are on the floor now; and some of the assistants are sick enough!"

"And your resident physician only passes through these hospitals once or twice a week—who attends to the patients?"

"Oh, the young doctors of course!"

"And are they experienced men?"

"Some of them are graduates, almost half I should think."

"And the rest?"

"I suppose, all have studied a year or two."

"And do these men—who have only studied a or year two—prescribe for the patients—without the advice of a superior?"

"Certainly, why not? They must begin sometime, you know."

"And will this poor woman, laboring as she is under an acute disease, be placed under the care of a mere student?"

The clerk mused before he answered.

"Let me see, number ten—yes, young Toules has charge there. It is his turn in the fever ward. He has never graduated, I believe."

"And has he had no practice among fevers?"

"Oh! yes, he has been three days in number ten, and one sees a good deal of fever in three days, I can tell you."

The stranger turned away sick at heart.

"Let me," he said, in a broken voice, "let me speak with the nurse who is to take care of the person I brought here."

The clerk called to a lame pauper who was limping through the building and ordered him to summon the nurse from number ten. The old man went with difficulty up the stairs that led from the hall, and soon returned, followed by a tall dissipated-looking woman of forty, who still retained in her swollen features traces of intelligence and early refinement that redeemed them in some degree from positive brutality.

A look of fierce and settled discontent lay on this woman's features, which was aggravated by the dress of dark blue that fell scant and ill-shapen around her stately figure, and was fastened tightly over the bosom with a succession of coarse horn buttons that but half filled the yawning buttonholes.

This woman approached the stranger with a dogged and sullen air.

"Is it you that wants me?" she said, looking earnestly at him. "That man said somebody wanted to see the nurse!"

"And is this woman a nurse to the sick? Is she to have the charge of this poor lady?" questioned the stranger, turning to the clerk.

"That is the nurse, and I hope she suits you, for you seem hard to please," answered the clerk, crustily. "She is one of the best women in the hospital, at any rate!"

The stranger turned his eyes upon the woman with a grave and pained look.

"I sent to ask your kindness for the poor lady that has just been carried to your ward," he said; "of course you are well paid by the city; but I am willing to reward you for extra care in this case!"

"Well paid by the city!" cried the woman, with a fierce and sneering laugh; "oh, yes, hard work and prison fare at the Penitentiary—harder work and pauper fare when they send us here for nurses. That is the pay we get from the corporation for nursing here in the fever. If we die there is a scant shroud, a pine coffin and Potter's field. That, is our pay, sir!" and the woman folded her arms, laughing low and dismally.

"The Penitentiary—what does she mean?" inquired the stranger, greatly shocked.

"Oh! they come from the Penitentiary, these nurses," said the clerk. "The corporation have to support the prisoners, you know, and the hospitals all get their help by law from Blackwell's Island."

"And is this woman a prisoner?"

"A prisoner—to be sure I am—you don't take me for a Poor House woman, I hope?" cried the nurse. "I haven't got to that yet—nobody can say that I was contemptible enough to come here of my own accord."

There was something too horrible in all this. The stranger sat down and drew out his purse with a suppressed groan.

"Here," he said, giving some money to the woman, "this will pay you for a little kindness to the poor lady. In the name of that God who has afflicted her, see that she has proper care."

The woman's face softened. For one instant some remnant of half-forgotten pride made her hesitate to take the money, but this was soon conquered, and she reached forth her hand clutching it eagerly.

"I will take care of the lady, sir, never fear," she said, and for the moment, she really intended to perform her promise.

"Do, and when you lie ill as she does, God be merciful to you as you are to her!" said the stranger, solemnly, and taking his hat he went forth with a sad countenance.

When Judge Sharp left Bellevue he went directly to the Mayor's residence, where he had made a dinner engagement the night before. We have already described his meeting with Joseph Esmond.

He was satisfied that the person whom he had conducted to the hospital was the lady for whom the lad was in search, and resolved to go with the boy and obtain more knowledge of her condition. The little girls had just returned from the funeral, and were sitting desolately in their bed-room, shrinking into the farthest corner like frightened birds in a cage, for the landlord had taken possession, and the poor children had no home but the street; even in that little bed-room they felt like intruders.

But the Judge came with Frederick and Joseph, and this was a sunbeam to their grief.

The noble man questioned them gently, and at last told the whole anxious group that Mrs. Chester was alive and in Bellevue, where he had himself conducted her.

The little girls uttered a cry.

Oh, the wild, the bitter joy of that moment. She was alive—alive! They should see her again—stand by her bedside. She would look at them—speak to them. They clung to each other, the sobs they could not suppress filled the room. The Poor House! They were going to the Poor House! What was that to them? She was there, and with her they could lie down and sleep once more. It was better thus. The landlord had taken possession of their home. He determined to keep the scant furniture, for his rent, and after that the home of those poor children was the street. The Alms House! It had a pleasant sound to them. That was a home from which no landlord could send them forth. They went gladly with Judge Sharp before the Commissioner.

"You will not let them take us away from her—we may all be together!" pleaded Mary.

The Commissioner mused; it was unusual, but he resolved to request of the superintendent that these children might not be taken from Bellevue until the mother was pronounced out of danger, or should be no more. He wrote to this effect, and with his own hands placed the children in the carriage that was to convey them to Bellevue.



CHAPTER XV.

THE FEVER WARD AND ITS PATIENTS.

Rest—give me rest—my forehead burns, Hot fires are kindled in my brain! Oh, give me rest, till he returns, Rest—rest from all this racking pain.

Poor Mrs. Chester, half dying and quite insensible, was borne into the fever ward of that close and crowded Hospital. Number ten was a large airy room, capable of holding twenty patients with comparative comfort, but now the fever was raging fiercely. Nearly six hundred patients crowded those gloomy walls, and in the room where twenty persons might have been almost comfortable, eighty poor creatures were huddled together, breathing the infected air over and over again till their struggling lungs were poisoned and saturated with the deadly atmosphere.

Close together, along the walls, were ranged narrow wooden cots, with their straw beds and coverings of coarse cotton check. And close together on those contracted couches—the meagre causeway from which many of these poor creatures were lifted to a pauper's grave, the patients were huddled, suffering in all the stages of that fierce and terrible disease, the malignant typhus.

There the sufferers lay, their death-couches jostling, the hot poison of their breaths mingling together, and spreading a dank miasma from bed to bed.

Some were in the first creeping stages of the disease flattering themselves that it was only a little cold they had taken. Others were shivering with that deathly chill that glides like the icy trail of a serpent down the back; the limbs aching as with severe toil, and the brain literally on fire with seething poison. Others were fierce and mad with delirium; their faces, their breasts and arms had turned of a dull copper color, the strongest and unmistakable sign of the deadly form which typhus takes when it is called malignant ship fever.

The poor creatures rolled to and fro on their narrow couches, tearing out the straw with their hot and quivering fingers, or twisting the soiled sheets with a feeble and shaking grasp. Some were calling for water, and praying in piteous tone for mountains of ice, cold bright ice to fall down and bury them.

Others were still further advanced in the terrible disease, and lay with the last heavy clouds of delirium resting upon the brain. Pale, emaciated and motionless, they spoke in whispers of the husbands and children whom they had left, it seemed to them years before, and of whom they faintly pleaded for tidings. It was piteous to see those weaker still, that lay more helpless than infants, the tears rolling mournfully from their eyes, unable to utter the inquiries that kept their white lips in constant motion, but gave out no sound.

More than one stretched back upon the meagre pillow, was in her death-throe groping in the air, with glazed eyes rolled upward to the ceiling, while the under jaw dropped lower, lower, leaving the mouth half open never to be closed again, save by a penitentiary nurse.

One lay dead upon her couch stiffening, there unheeded, the God of heaven only knowing at what moment the breath left her body.

Scant and miserable as were those pauper beds, enough for all to die upon could not be found at the Hospital; so blankets had been cast upon the floor, and on them were laid the sick, till the whole ward was completely littered with human misery. Over this scene came the glaring daylight, for the windows had neither blinds nor shutters, nothing but a valance of gingham through which the sunshine poured upon the aching eyes of the sick.

They laid Mrs. Chester among those who moaned and writhed upon the floor. Nothing but the rough folds of a blanket lay between her delicate limbs and the hard boards. Amid the groans, the ravings of delirium, the faint death rattle that rose and swelled upon the horrid atmosphere, they laid her down. The student physician had been his rounds that day, and so she was left to the care of the nurses. Thus she remained quite unconscious of the horrors that surrounded her, till the nurse came back from her interview with Judge Sharp. This woman grasped the money in her palm, and the touch seemed to give a glow of animal pleasure to her features, as she threaded her way through the prostrate sick.

A nurse some years younger than herself, but with less of character in her face, stood near the door. She approached this woman, and softly unclosing her hand revealed the money.

"What! there have but four died to-day—you did not find that about them? I searched thoroughly myself, and none of them had a cent."

"Never mind where it came from. You shall have a share, but remember I have got to work for it yet. Where is the woman they have just brought in?"

"What, the slender woman with all that beautiful hair? She is about here, on the floor, I believe."

"She must have a cot, I am determined on it," said the elder nurse, resolutely. "Those who pay us shall be first served," and the woman went on through the prostrate sick, searching eagerly for Mrs. Chester. "Yes, here she is, sure enough," talking softly to herself—"now let us see what can be done about a bed."

The woman moved from cot to cot, gazing on the inmates, not with pity, she was used to their moans, but eagerly searching for a bed that promised soon to be empty. Her eyes fell upon the corpse that lay within a few paces of Mrs. Chester, and she approached the cot with gleeful alacrity, saying to her companion:

"Oh, here is an empty bed—I thought it would not be long before we found something for her to lie on besides the floor. Go and call Crofts."

The younger nurse went out, and directly there came two men into the ward, bearing a rude pine coffin between them. They trod heavily along the floor, knocking the coffin now and then against a cot till it jarred the helpless inmate, and thus they carried it down the whole length of the ward. They deposited the rude thing close by the blanket on which Mrs. Chester lay, and then went out, leaving the women to relieve the bed of its mournful burden.

The younger nurse had brought with her a scant shroud, of the coarsest muslin, and there in the midst of the sick, one of the women put this grave garment on, while the other stealthily searched in the bosom of the corpse and under the pillow for any little valuable that the poor woman might have hoarded in her death-bed. After groping about awhile, the young nurse drew forth her hand with a low chuckle. It contained a bit of tissue paper, soiled and crumpled in a heap. A bank note! what else could it be? The two women looked at the paper and their eyes gleamed. It was not often that they found bank notes about the Bellevue paupers! How they longed to examine it then and there! But the sick were not all insensible, and the young woman thrust the treasure into her bosom, whispering as she stooped down to smooth the shroud:

"By and by—of course we go halves to-day!"

"That is fair and above board!" replied the other, folding the arms of the dead upon the pulseless bosom they had robbed, "there now, call in the men!"

Again those two men came tramping heavily among the sick. There was some bustle and a little joking as they placed the pauper corpse in its pine coffin; and when they bore it out one of the men inquired, in a voice that might have been heard half over the room, if there was much chance of their being wanted again within an hour or two.

The elder nurse looked around upon the cots, and answered that it was very likely, but that the next coffin must be longer—at least four inches longer!

The two women followed the coffin out, and when quite alone in the passage, fell to examining the value of their prize.

"There must be two bills," said the younger, beginning to unfold the little parcel, "what if each of them should be a five, now!"

These words were followed by a short and scornful laugh, accompanied by an oath, that most fearful thing on the lips of a woman. The scrap of soiled tissue paper unfolded a lock of grey hair.

"Never mind, mine is here all in hard chink!" said the elder nurse, striking her bosom. "Here will be enough, with what the doctor allows for the patients, to give us one glorious night. Just help me lift the woman into bed, then slide round to the consumption wards; or, what's better, whisper a word to the orderly, and ask him to come; we'll make the old shanty shake again before midnight."

The young woman, after appeasing her disappointment by casting the lock of hair upon the floor, and grinding it fiercely beneath her heavy shoe, became somewhat consoled. But she sullenly expressed a determination to find her share of the drink, if she were obliged to rob every patient in the ward.

After this conference the nurses returned to the ward. One took off Mrs. Chester's outer garments, while the other proceeded to arrange the empty cot. In the same cot, the same sheets, and on the very pillow from which the dead had just been removed, they laid the helpless woman. Upon her fair hands and face still rested the dust that had been gathering upon her from the street. But under our benignant Common Council, the largest hospital in America contained no bath for its patients, though the Croton water gushed everywhere around the building. There was a shower bath for punishment of the penitentiary women, but for the suffering—-not even that.

They laid her down, therefore, unrefreshed in that death couch; and there she remained moaning like the rest, lifting her sweet voice louder and louder in her excitement; for the noise, the atmosphere and the horrid sights everywhere in the room drove her wild. She flung up her hands and laughed as the nurses passed to and fro before her bed. She called them angels—those two besotted creatures—and besought them with wild, sweet energy to cherish and care for Chester while she was so far away. These women promised her cajolingly, patting her head with their bloated hands, which, in her madness, she would gather to her bosom or kiss eagerly with her hot lips.

The ordinary course of her disease might not have arrived so early to the fierce virulence that it had now obtained; but the day had been one of fearful turmoil, even for a healthy person, and this fever, in a single hour, grows fierce and strong upon such causes. Fuel for a death-fire had been heaped up in that one miserable day. Now the poor creature began to rave—her child, her husband, and little Mary. She shrieked for them louder and louder, that her voice might rise above the wild, strong cries that swelled as she thought in defiance of her feebleness.



CHAPTER XVI.

JANE CHESTER AND HER LITTLE NURSES.

As the starbeams come earthward, and smile on the night, Awaking the blossoms that drooped in the day, And kindling their hearts with a dewy delight, They came to the couch where the sufferer lay.

All at once, in the very height and fury of her delirium, Mrs. Chester fell back upon the pillow smiling; the hot tears rolled from her eyes, and her shaking hand was outstretched. She knew them—for one minute, that woman's heart grew stronger than her frenzied brain, She knew those two little girls who crept hand in hand to her couch, holding back their tears, and striving to look cheerful; though each smile that they forced broke away in a quiver upon their lips, and the very effort to be calm made their grief more visible.

"Children—my children!" whispered the poor woman, softly, for, after they came in, she never once lifted her voice as she had done, "come, I will make room—the bed is cool and broad—better, so much better than that in which they shook and jostled me—come, my little tired birds—here is pillow enough for us all; when he comes home again it will please him to see us here, so comfortable. Ah, here come my angels; sit close, little ones, till they sweep by. You cannot see their wings now—they are furled close under those comical dresses, but that is because we are not good enough to look upon them. Some day, when he comes, my angels will throw off those blue clothes, and then their wings will unfurl and scatter soft, sweet air all over us. You shall see them then, so beautiful—fringed and starred and spotted with gold and purple and bright green—with sunshine melting through, and the scent of violets dropping around—hush, girls, don't cry, you shall have a good sight at my angels then—see, see, I am beckoning them here. Now, hold your breath and wait; hush!"

The two nurses, who had been at another end of the ward, came that way, and with her hand quivering in the air, the poor invalid beckoned them. They came on, loitering heavily along, and talking to each other. The young woman turned away to another side, and the elder nurse moved forward, grumbling.

"See, one is coming. I have been bad to-day, you know, and only this angel will appear," whispered the invalid, pointing with her unsteady finger toward the nurse.

Mary Fuller looked up; her large eyes began to dilate, and her face grew very pale. The woman's eyes fell upon her. A look of ferocious pleasure rose to her face, and she came forward, laying her hand heavily upon the child's shoulder.

"Mother!" broke from Mary Fuller, and the tears stood in her affrighted eyes, "oh, mother!"

"Don't mother me, puss! A pretty child you are, to sneak off, get yourself new frocks and the like, while your own poor mamma is in prison!" cried the woman, clutching the child's shoulder. "And how came you here at last?"

"I came in search of her!" said the child, pointing to Mrs. Chester; "she was good to me, after—after they took you away. I lived with them; this is her little girl!"

"Then you did not come to see your own mother!—very well—very well! I only wait till I get out, that's all!" and giving the poor child a shake, the woman fell to settling the bed-clothes about Mrs. Chester, muttering threats against the child who stood trembling by her side.

"I have come," said Mary, meekly, following the woman as she turned from the bed; "I have come to stay. The kind gentleman at the Park said that we might both live at Bellevue till she was better. Mother, oh! mother, let me help take care of her. I can—see how strong I have grown!"

"Take care of her, indeed—and who would take care of me, if I were sick, I should like to know?"

"I would, indeed I would, mother."

"Indeed you would—very likely," sneered the woman. "But stay, for what I care—you will be sure to catch the fever though; and that little doll, with long curls, let her stay, too. It's a sweet place, here, for children!"

"I don't want her to stay here—only let her come in once in awhile to see her poor mother—she is so young and so pretty; the fever takes those first, I am sure!"

"Well, let her come or go—only remember this, if you stay here it will be no baby play, but work—I'll make you work, let me tell you that!"

"I will work—oh, mother, if anything I can do will only save her! You don't know how hungry I was after you went away—and she fed me!"

"Well, feed her, then!" cried the woman, a little softened, "there is a cup, get some water and give her drinks!"

Mary Fuller took the tin-cup pointed out, and filled it with water. She went up to the patient with her gentle voice, and held the water to her lips. The poor woman drank greedily, and then Mary went about seeking for other means of comfort. The doctor had not yet seen his patient, so she could only act by her own feeble judgment. She found a large bowl, and filling it with water, bathed the neck and face and hands of the poor invalid. Then she saturated Isabel's handkerchief, and laid it moist and dripping upon the hot forehead.

"She is better—see, it does her good!" cried the child, with glad tears in her eyes, turning to Isabel, who stood by, weeping as if her heart would break, and trembling with a fit of terror that had seized her the moment she entered the room.

This cool ablution had indeed relieved the patient. She sighed deeply, and her mind seemed to change its tone. She was wandering in sweet and pleasant places, where fountains gushed high, and wild flowers shook and brightened beneath the soft rain-drops that fell around; nothing could be more beautiful than the words that denoted this bright change in her wanderings. Mary's heart thrilled to hear these words, for she knew that it was her hand that had created the paradise in which the sufferer fancied herself to be wandering.

Only once during the next twenty-four hours did Mary leave that humble bed; then it was to accompany Isabel to the matron, who kindly gave her a pillow, and allowed her to lie down on the carpet in her room. The poor child was completely worn out with fatigue and grief.

But Mary never left her watch for a minute. All the evening she sat by Mrs. Chester's couch, bathing the forehead of her benefactress, cooling the palms of her hands, and listening to the soft murmurs that fell from her lips.

About ten in the evening, there came into the ward a young man, not more than twenty years of age, and singularly effeminate in his appearance. He wore a loose calico dressing-gown, and embroidered slippers. His manners were gentle, and he seemed greatly distressed by all the misery that surrounded him. Never in his brief existence had this young man prescribed for a patient, till he entered the Hospitals at Bellevue; yet there he stood, in the midst of a pestilence that might have taxed the skill of twenty old physicians, free to tamper as he pleased with all that mass of human misery.

It was well for those poor creatures, that this young student made up in goodness of heart what he lacked in experience. He did not fear the pestilence half so much as his own ignorance. But for that professional pride that clings so powerfully to the young, he would have resigned at once, rather than take upon his conscience the solemn responsibility of life and death, as it lay before him in that fever-ward. But the ignorance that does nothing, is preferable to that which absolutely kills. The student had little confidence in himself, but he did not strangle nature with his presumption, and lacking deeper skill, made a kind nurse. He had learned how to watch the changes of this disease—an important thing to know—and gave little medicine, but was prompt at sustaining life with stimulants when the time came for that. Altogether, it was a fortunate chance for the poor creatures huddled in that fever-ward, that they were consigned to no worse hands.

The young doctor went his rounds, with a small blank-book in his hand, writing down with a pencil the few and simple prescriptions that he gave. His presence had a soothing effect upon the patients, for he spoke kindly to them all. At length he came to Mrs. Chester—two days and three nights she had been struggling with the fatal disease. The little Mary sat meekly by her side, for up to this time she alone had ministered to the sick woman.

The young man took Mrs. Chester's hand from the checked coverlet and began to count her pulse. A hundred—more, even more than that he counted before the minute went by. It was a case of fearful danger; he saw that at once. Gladly would he have called in counsel, but no physician had a right within the walls of Bellevue, except those appointed by the Resident. Two of the assistants were ill, and the Resident had not yet returned from his dinner with the Common Council. Perhaps this was a fortunate chance, for the simple remedies ventured upon by the student did no harm, and nature was left untrammelled to wrestle with the disease.

"You will let me stay with her. The gentleman at the Park said I might stay, if the Doctor did not object!" said Mary, lifting her eyes to the young man as he laid Mrs. Chester's hand upon the bed.

The student had hardly noticed the child before; but the sweetness of her voice pleased him, and he answered that she might stay if she could do any good to her sick friend.

"I have been listening. I heard what you said about them all along here. In the morning you shall see if I hav'n't taken some care!"

"I hope so," said the student, sadly, "for, without care, the greatest care, a good many must be dead before morning!"

"Show me which. Just point them out very softly, and tell me what ought to be done. You need not be afraid that I shall fall asleep!" whispered the little girl, rising eagerly.

The student looked at the child in surprise. Her plain face, a moment before so sad, shone with the brightness of an angel's.

"I am sure you will not sleep," he said. "Now follow me around to these beds and I will repeat my directions to you—the women, I see are gone out. You will make a small nurse, but a very good one, I dare say!"

Mary followed him, listening to every word that fell from his lips, and reading the expression of his face with her intelligent eyes.

All night long the child was on her feet moving from bed to bed, carrying drink to one, persuading another to swallow the medicine that had been prescribed, and pouring a spoonful of wine or brandy into the pale mouth of another; thus keeping the feeble lamp of life flickering on, pauper life, it is true, but precious to them as the breath that swells the purple-clad bosom of a monarch.

The nurses left the ward about midnight, and did not return for many hours. When they came back Mary turned very pale, and cowered down at the foot of Mrs. Chester's bed. Her mother—she knew the signs, oh, how well—her mother had been drinking. Judge Sharp's benevolence had provided the means of a carouse for those two wretched women. They both came in reeling from one sick bed to another; the older muttering taunts upon the wretched inmates; the other shedding maudlin tears more horrible and disgusting still. After wandering about the ward for a time, the two wretched creatures seated themselves upon the floor, and throwing their arms around each other, sunk into a brutal slumber which lasted till day-light.

Again Mary Fuller arose from her place by Mrs. Chester; again she ministered to the lips that unconsciously muttered her name, coupling it with words of tender love; and again she hovered around those pauper couches, treading very lightly, for she trembled with fear that her mother might awake. When daylight came, the child went noiselessly round to those whom the doctor had supposed in the greatest danger. They were all alive. One looked up, blessing her with eyes that, lacking her gentle care, must have been sealed in death. Another parted her pale lips, and besought the child not to leave her again to the care of those rude women. A third took her little thin hand and kissed it.

The child crept back to her seat, weeping tears of thankfulness. She, apparently one of the most helpless of God's creatures, had that night saved the lives of three human beings. She had done this great good, and with her little hands folded in her lap thanked God—not audibly, but as children sometimes do thank the Heavenly Father—that He had made her so strong.

While these feelings comforted the child, the mother arose heavily from her drunken slumber.



CHAPTER XVII.

THE STUDENT PHYSICIAN AND THE CHILD.

Softly she came like a spirit of light, And her goodness shone out like the glow in a gem; As she waited and watched through the wearisome night, The fall of her footstep was music to them.

Another day went by. New patients were crowded into the hospital, and some were carried out with their feet toward the door. For an hour or two that day Mary Fuller slept a little, with her head resting against Mrs. Chester's cot. The groans and the depression of the sick did not shake her nerves as they had at first; and the poor thing was so exhausted that even in that place, and in the poisoned atmosphere, her slumber was deep and tranquil; and then came a remembrance of her father's dying words, that no human being was so humble or weak that some good to humanity might not be won from her exertions. She looked around the ward and saw a blessing in every eye, and she knew that one in heaven was blessing her also.

Oh, if Mrs. Chester could have slept for one hour like that little creature at her feet. But the poison seemed kindling afresh in her brain; her fancies grew wild and terrible; she was climbing mountains, sinking deep, deep, deep into the very bowels of the earth, where serpents coiled and hissed, and writhed with horrid joy as they saw her descend. Now she clung to the point of some sharp rock, holding on with her fingers, while those huge serpents trailed themselves upward, crawling slowly from the abyss from which she was saved only by the grip of her own slender fingers.

Then you knew by her voice that the scene had changed. She was pleading for Chester—pleading with low broken tones, that would have touched a heart of stone. She besought the Mayor not to wrong her husband, not to press and wring his proud spirit so cruelly as he had done; and then she believed that her sweet eloquence had prevailed, for her lips trembled with thanks; she murmured nothing but soft blessings upon the man who had been to her worse than a murderer. Another change, and she passed on to some new hallucination, visionary as the last, for day and night her brain never rested. When they questioned her, the poor woman always answered that she was not ill, that nothing was the matter, nothing whatever—she only wondered the people would tease her so with inquiries that had no meaning.

Another night came on, and again Mary prepared herself to watch by the sick. The few hours of slumber she had obtained, made quite a new creature of her. She was resolved to be doubly vigilant—that no one of the suffering persons around her should lack nourishment or care. How cheerful and strong the little creature grew, as a sense of her power to accomplish good increased upon her. It was strange, but after the first few minutes she never once thought of the danger. There she was, feeble and helpless, in the very midst of a pestilence that would have terrified the strongest man; but it seemed quite impossible to the brave girl that the fever should reach her. Perhaps this very confidence protected her, for while she inhaled poison with every breath, it produced no harmful effect upon her.

The nurses were sullen and bitter in their language to the child all day. They seemed to think her an intruder, and, but for the young physician, she must have been driven forth from the ward by her own mother. Toward night these two women whispered much together, going frequently into the passage where several nurses from other wards met them stealthily. As the night drew on, Mrs. Chester sunk into a fitful sleep, and this encouraged the little watcher, who sat gazing wistfully on her face, scarcely daring to move, though the noise around was unabated. The hours crept on, and darkness gathered over those pauper-couches. Mary looked up through the gloom, and saw her mother creeping softly from couch to couch, making herself very busy with the medicines. The doctor had just paid his last visit for the night; finding Mrs. Chester low, and evidently sinking, he had ordered both brandy and wine to be given in small quantities, but very frequently, during the night.

The tin-cups which held the precious stimulants—for they were precious in the sick-room, holding life and death in their strength—stood upon a little stool near Mrs. Chester's cot. It was these tin-cups that drew the nurse like a vampire to the spot where her child sat watching.

"Go," she said, in a more kindly tone than she had hitherto used when addressing the gentle girl, "go and bring that little curly-headed doll in, if she wants to kiss her mother again to-night—I suppose she would like to see her fast asleep, as she is now!"

Mary arose, dissatisfied, she knew not why, with the tone of cajoling kindness in which she had been addressed. But Mrs. Chester slept, and during the next ten minutes would not require her attendance. Isabel had been drooping like a strange bird, since she came to the Alms House, and Mary knew that it would cheer her to see her poor mother in that calm sleep. Still the child went forth with unaccountable reluctance. The moment she was out of sight, that wretched woman pounced like a bird of prey upon those tin-cups, and poured three-fourths of their contents into a dark earthern pitcher that she carried under her apron. Then she hastily filled the cups with water, leaving just enough of the original contents to color the whole.

The next and next patient was robbed in like manner; then with her black pitcher reeking with the life she had plundered from those poor creatures, the wretch went out, comparing with a chuckle her horrid spoil, with the jar half-full of brandy, which the younger nurse had gathered from her end of the ward.

"Hurry, hurry, or we shan't get through before the young cockatrice comes back to catch us at work! She has got the eye of a hawk, I can tell you," cried the woman, emptying her pitcher into the jar, which was carried away to a safe corner by her accomplice.

"Come, bring the water and fill up after me. There is twenty beds left yet. I gave the right sort of symptoms to the doctor, and he left the kind of medicine that we like best for almost the whole lot."

The young woman followed her ruthless leader into the ward, carrying the water-pitcher in her unsteady hand, for she had not reached the hardened audacity of her preceptress, and there was something in the scene to make even a debased nature tremble.

"Don't, don't take more than half; they will die before morning if we do!" she whispered, as the eyes of a patient, full of heart-rending reproach, was turned upon their work. "See, this one is so feeble."

"Poh, a little brandy, more or less, what does it signify?" cried Mrs. Fuller.

"The wine, then leave the wine. I did not take a drop!"

"More fool, you!"

"Hush!" said the young woman, "I hear her coming. Leave the rest; we shall be found out."

"Take this and give me the water. Out of the way, now, and see that you don't drink any till I come!"

The young woman hurried out of the room, meeting Mary Fuller and little Isabel in the passage.

"They want water. I am going for more water. It is wonderful how they keep us running night and day!" she said, hoping to draw off their attention with a gratuitous falsehood.

Neither of the little girls answered, but passed gently into the ward.

Mrs. Fuller was by a cot near the door, holding her water-pitcher to the lips of a patient; nothing could appear more kind than her demeanor. "Ah, here you are," she said, nodding to the children, "she is asleep yet! Don't make any more noise than you can help."

Isabel went up to her mother's cot, and kneeling by it looked earnestly upon the pale and languid features.

"Is she better?—see how white she is, how her eyes are sunken. She hardly breathes at all. Oh, Mary, is she better?"

"Yes, the Doctor says so—and she does not mutter to herself or seem so restless as she did. I think, Isabel that she is better!"

The tears gushed into Isabel's eyes. She bent down and softly kissed the pale hand of her mother. Mrs. Chester started and opened her eyes; they fell upon her child, and instantly that full gaze was blended with tears.

"Isabel, my child." The words were very, very faint, but oh, how sweetly they fell upon those young hearts.

"She knows me—oh, Mary, she knows me!" cried the child, and her beautiful face grew radiant amid the tears that covered it, like a flower struck with sunshine when the dew is heaviest on its petals. "Mamma, oh, my own mamma, this is Mary, our Mary Fuller!"

The sick woman turned her eyes toward her little nurse. She tried to lift her hand, but it only shook on the checked quilt.

"Mary, my good, good Mary!"

Mary knelt down softly by her friend, and bowing her head wept in sweet and grateful joy.

"Where am I? Where have I been?" asked the invalid, still more faintly.

"You are with us, this is our home!" answered Mary, almost catching her breath, for she dared not tell the poor lady where she really was.

Mrs. Chester was now quite exhausted, her eyes closed, and she scarcely breathed. Mary started up and poured out a spoonful of what she supposed to be wine.

"Every ten minutes—every ten minutes we must give her this, with the beef tea when she can take it."

"Let me—oh, let me give it to her this one time," pleaded Isabel.

Mary resigned the pewter spoon with a faint smile, and Isabel held the colored water to her mother's pale lips. Then Mrs. Chester slept again while the two girls sat watching her with their hopeful eyes. Once every ten minutes these little creatures would steal up to the pillow and pour the mockery of strength between those white and parted lips, hoping each time that she would open her eyes and speak to them again—but no, she slept on and each moment her breath grew fainter. While the two girls sat with their arms interlinked watching that beloved face, the nurses stole out from the ward, and crept, each with an earthen pitcher in her hand, down the Hospital stairs, and out into the open grounds.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MIDNIGHT REVEL—MARY AND HER MOTHER.

Time stole into eternity, And they stood wondering by, Breathless, and oh, how silently To watch the lov'd one die.

Between that portion of Bellevue occupied as an hospital and the main building lay several enclosures sparsely cultivated with flowers, but altogether possessing a barren and dismal aspect. Scattered through these enclosures were offices and shanties, some occupied by favored paupers, and others used as work-shops and for the culinary purposes of the Hospitals.

In one of these shanties a shocking scene presented itself that night. The signal for a secret carouse had been given, and the orderlies and nurses crept stealthily from their posts by the sick, and came through the midnight darkness towards the shanty. Some came slowly and at once; while others stole like gaunt wild beasts, by the high wall that sweeps parallel with the western front of the main Hospital, sheltering themselves beneath the willow trees and the deep shadow cast by the building, while with their hands they groped eagerly along the wall. They found, after some trouble, the cords for which they were seeking, each with a piece of iron at the end, that had been cast over the wall by an accomplice outside the gate. Three of these cords lay tightened across the wall, their iron ballast sunk into the turf, and with breathless haste they were drawn over each with a bottle at the end, which, as it reached the top of the wall, fell into the foul hands grasping at it.

One bottle was broken in the fall, for the man stationed to receive it was very old, and he could not see like the others. When the vessel was dashed against the stones bespattering the aged drunkard with its contents, he fell upon the grass wringing his hands and bemoaning his hard fate. The others met his grief with muttered curses, and one of them spurned the grovelling creature with his foot, showering fierce reproaches upon his carelessness.

They drove this miserable being back to his lair in the shanties, but he crawled abjectly toward them, begging to join the carouse notwithstanding his great misfortune. They would still have rejected him, but the old man had learned craft with his age, and when pleading was of no avail, betook himself to threats, which proved more effectual than his tears. Fearing that he might expose them in the morning, they consented that the old man should have a portion of their spoils, and he followed them through the darkness like a lame old hound that takes his food greedily, though beaten by the hand that gives it.

A cooking-stove stood in the shanty, with a pine table and some stools. Upon the stove was a metal lamp burning dimly and emitting a cloud of smoke. One end of the table held a tin candlestick, where a meagre tallow-candle swaled away in the socket, and the table was littered with fragments of food in little round pans. An iron spoon or two, with three or four tin cups, lay amid this confusion. Around this table hovered half a dozen women nearly intoxicated with brandy supplied by the nurses, from number ten.

In this state was the shanty when the two orderlies came in, hugging the great black bottles to their bosoms, followed by the old pauper, who still muttered discontentedly at his loss.

Then began the carouse in earnest! The tin cups were filled again and again—the earthen pitchers circulated from lip to lip—like wild animals, they devoured the fragments stolen from the convalescent patients, and swallowed the stimulants, of which they had plundered the dying not a stone's throw off; pipes and tobacco were produced, the women smoking fiercely like the men; while ribald jests and muttered curses rose through the foul smoke.

And these were the persons provided by a law of New York City for the sick poor—these fierce women, reeling to and fro like fiends amid the smoke, making sport of pain, joking about coffins—laughing with drunken glee over the death throes they had witnessed. These were the nurses a great and rich city gave to its poor—merciful economy—sweet, beautiful humanity!

And there sat those gentle children in the fever wards so wickedly deserted. From time to time Isabel parted the violet lips of her poor mother, and forced through them the liquid fraud that was so cruelly deceiving them. Mary went from bed to bed administering to the dying poor, as she had done the night before; but with a heavy heart, for all that she gave them imparted no strength. She could see the helpless creatures droop and sink from minute to minute; one or two were benefited, but the rest only seemed worse from all her tending.

Mary was giving a draught of water to a young woman, who in her delirium clamored constantly for drink, when Isabel stole softly to her side. The child was very pale, and her large eyes dilated with terror. She took hold of Mary's dress and pulled it.

"Mary, oh, Mary, she did not swallow the last. Come, come and help me!"

Mary sat down the water pitcher and went to Mrs. Chester. She bent down close to the motionless face, listening. You could see her cheek grow pale in the dim light, as she held her own breath, hoping to catch one flutter from those white and parted lips. She lifted her head at last, and turned her mournful eyes on Isabel.

The little girl looked imploringly upon her—she shed no tear—uttered no word; but fell, like a wounded bird, prone to the floor, and there stood poor Mary in the midst of death, utterly alone.

When the nurses came reeling up from their carouse, three lay dead upon those narrow cots besides Mrs. Chester, and two were dying.

"Go and call Crofts!" cried Mrs. Fuller, staggering from bed to bed, reckless and fierce. "Let us have the cots cleared—bring in the shrouds, I say. Tell Crofts we have plenty of use for his pine boxes to-night."

The other nurse obeyed her, muttering fiercely against the unevenness of the floor.

The coffins were brought in, and these two wretched women arranged the poor creatures they had murdered, for their pauper graves. They came to Mrs. Chester last, but Mary Fuller, who knelt by the bed-side with poor Isabel senseless at her feet, arose and stood firmly before her mother.

"You shall not touch her! You shall not even look at her!" cried the noble child—and with her trembling hand she drew the sheet over the features she had so dearly loved.

The woman glared fiercely upon the child. Drink had rendered her ferocious—she lifted her clenched hand, shaking it savagely, and an oath broke from her hot lips—an oath over the beautiful dead.

"I—I will put that on," said the child, pointing to the shroud which the nurse held crushed under her arm.

"Out of my way!" cried the furious woman—"out of the way, or I will strike you!"

"Mother, leave this poor lady to me, or I will go myself and call up the doctor," answered the child firmly.

"Out of my way!" repeated the wretched woman.

The child grew pale as death, but in her eyes rose the steady firmness of a meek but strong spirit, fully aroused.

"Mother, though you strike me to your feet, though you kill me, I will not let you come near this poor lady—not now—not as you are!"

"As I am!—how is that?" cried the vile mother, lifting her soiled apron to her eyes and heaving a sob. "Here I am, a poor, forlorn prisoner, and you, my own child, must come to taunt me in this way—I wish I were dead—oh, I do—I do!"

And in a fit of maudlin self-condolence, the base woman betook herself to a corner of the ward where, with her arms flung across the cot of a delirious patient, she muttered herself into a heavy slumber.

Mary Fuller turned to her mournful task. First she sprinkled water in poor Isabel's face, and strove with all her feeble skill to bring the child from the death-like swoon in which she had fallen; but the beautiful child lay upon the floor, pale as her mother, and looking nearly as much like death. When all her own simple efforts at restoration proved fruitless, Mary went out in search of help; she met Crofts in the passage, who took the child in his arms and bore her to the matron's room.

When Crofts returned with the pine coffin he found the remains of poor Jane Chester reposing beneath the scant folds of an Alms House shroud. The pale hands were laid meekly on her bosom, and her hair—that long, beautiful hair, which Chester had been so proud of, lay in all its bright beauty over her brow. Disease had not yet reached the purple bloom that lay upon those tresses, and Mary, following her own gentle memory of the past, had disposed them in rich waves back from the forehead, which gave a singular but beautiful look to that calm, dead face. They lifted the pale form of Jane Chester, and laid it reverently in the pauper coffin. There was neither pillow nor lining there, nothing but the bare boards to receive those delicate limbs, and this bleak poverty made even the heart of Crofts sink within him.

"It is a pity—she does not seem like the rest—I wish we had asked the matron for a strip of cloth or something to put under her head," he whispered, addressing the stolid man who stood by.

"Wait, only wait a few minutes," answered Mary, laying her hand eagerly on Crofts' arm. "How kind it is of you to think of this. You will wait, I am sure. I—I will get something!"

"Very well, we will take out the others first," said Crofts, who was very kindly disposed toward the little girl; "be quick, though."

Mary went out in breathless haste. She was very pale, and her eyes were full of sorrowful eagerness as she went forth into the dim, grey morning, just breaking through the fog that lay on the Long Island shore, and revealing the waters that rolled darkly between that and Bellevue. She threaded her way through the enclosures which we have mentioned. The light was just sufficient to reveal a few spring flowers, starting up from the soil, and the soft foliage of an old vine or two that covered the nakedness of some outbuilding.

Ignorant of those rules that made her act a trespass, Mary wandered on, gathering up the hyacinths, violets and golden crocuses to which the night had given birth. Down to the water's edge she rambled, carefully gathering up each bud in her passage. In a corner of the superintendent's garden she found an old pear tree, dead, except the trunk and a single limb nearest to the ground, that was studded with snow-white blossoms.

Mary clambered up by the wall, and breaking off handful after handful of these fragrant buds, carried them, all wet with dew, back to the hospital. As she bore her treasure along the fever ward, scenting the pestilential atmosphere with their pure breath, the sick turned their languid faces toward her, greedily inhaling the transient sweetness. Two or three of the convalescent women followed her with longing eyes. She felt these glances and turned back, leaving a spray of the dewy buds upon the pillow of each. The grateful look with which her kindness was greeted softened somewhat the sorrow that oppressed her.

With the most touching reverence she knelt by Mrs. Chester's coffin, lifted that cold head softly from the boards, and placed the flowers she had brought beneath it. Softly she laid her benefactress down upon the blossom pillow. The delicate blending of rosy purple with the rich gold of the crocuses and the golden green willow leaves, relieved by the pure white of the blossoms underneath, cast around the dead a halo of spiritual beauty. The soft and blended brightness of the flowers seemed to illuminate those beautiful and tranquil features. Around the form of Jane Chester there seemed nothing of death but its solemn repose.

"Not yet—a little, only a little longer!" pleaded the child, as Crofts came to close the coffin, "I hope, I am almost sure, Isabel can bear to look at her now!"

Crofts smiled grimly, and sat down on the empty cot. In a few moments Mary came into the ward, supporting Isabel with her frail strength. The child wept no longer, but the trembling of her little form was painfully visible as she tottered forward. Not a word passed between the children—not a look was exchanged, but when Isabel bent over her mother, and saw the blossom shadows trembling around her head, her lips began to quiver, and the tears gushed from her heart.

Crofts, the common upholsterer of the Poor House, turned away his face, and wiped his eyes with the skirt of his coat. Close by him stood the man who shared his horrid duties, gazing with a look of stolid indifference on the scene. Crofts arose, and taking this man by the arm, led him out from the ward.

The two little girls went away after the coffin was removed; directly Mary came back with her shawl and hood on. She was ready to leave Bellevue, and returned to say a last, kind word to her mother. The promise she had made her father on his death-bed rose to her mind, and took the form of a prayer.

"Mother, look up, mother, I am going." The woman turned heavily and lifted her head. "I am going, mother."

"Very well, I can't help it," muttered the mother, heavily.

"I don't know where they will take us, or if we shall ever see one another again," persisted the child; "but, oh, mother before we part, tell me how I can make you love me?"

"If there is a drop of brandy anywhere about, bring it and I'll love you dearly, indeed I will, little Mary; I ain't at all well, Mary, and a drop of brandy is good for sickness; get some, that's a dear; I'm very fond of you, Mary!"

"Mother, I cannot; but, if you will never ask for it again, I will. Oh, I will die for you; I hav'n't anything but my life to give—nor that," she added, with a sudden thought, "for it belongs to God; I have nothing."

Mrs. Fuller had fallen asleep, and heard nothing of this. So Mary turned away sorrowful, but not altogether hopeless. Those who trust in God never are.



CHAPTER XIX.

A SPRING MORNING—AND A PAUPER BURIAL.

Not here—not here with our lovely dead— Oh, give one spot of sacred earth! Where the grass may wave, above her head, And the sweet, wild flowers have holy birth.

Oh, grant our prayer—our solemn prayer— A lonely grave—and fresh, green sod— There is earth around us everywhere; And the mother earth belongs to God.

A long heavy boat lay at the Bellevue wharf. In the bow sat half a dozen paupers, who started up now and then to range the coffins that came in wheelbarrow loads from a little brick building near the wharf.

A name was marked rudely in chalk upon the lid of each coffin, and this was all that those who brought them knew or cared about the senseless forms they carried. Out from that brick house, and along the wharf, they were trundled amid a swarm of loungers, who helped eagerly to lower them into the boat.

It was the harvest time of death at Bellevue, and those pine coffins were garnered by tens and twenties each day. That morning the weight of twenty-four human forms, all breathing souls fifteen hours before, sunk that stout boat to the water's edge.

When the last coffin came alone upon the handbarrow, Crofts accompanied it, followed by two little girls. With his own hands he helped to lower that coffin into the boat, and those paupers who could read saw Jane Chester's name chalked upon the lid. As Crofts settled his burden gently down across an empty seat, a faint odor of flowers stole through the crevices, and when the rude sail cloth was flung carelessly over the rest, he laid a strip of clean, coarse linen over this coffin, then clambering across to the man who sat with the helm in his hand, he imparted some directions to him in a low voice.

"What, up to Randall's Island! Take those two children in the boat there and back to the nurseries! It can't be done, I tell you," said the man, sulkily. "I won't do it without the Superintendent's order, nor then either, if I can help myself."

"Oh, let us go with her—pray take us!" cried Mary Fuller, who was anxiously watching the man, while Isabel bent over the wharf, her hands hanging down, and her eyes full of helpless woe.

The pauper captain neither heeded the pleading cry of Mary Fuller, or the more touching look of the orphan—and to all the humane arguments of Crofts he turned a deaf ear. At length Crofts found a means of persuasion more potent than tears or words. He took from his pocket four twists of coarse tobacco, which the captain received with a grin. Hiding the treasure under his seat, he cast a sharp glance over the pile of coffins to assure himself that the transfer had not been observed by the men in the bow.

"Holloa, there, stop crying and jump in if you want to go!" cried the man, addressing the children; "make room in the bow, will you—we have got to leave these children at the nurseries as we come back."

Crofts lifted the little girls into the boat, sat them gently down in the shadow of Mrs. Chester's coffin, and went back to the hospital.

"Give way, all hands!" cried the captain, seizing the helm. "Pull a strong oar, boys, or the tide will turn agin us!"

Half a dozen oars splashed into the water as this command was given. The boat moved slowly from the wharf, and wheeling through a narrow inlet, shot heavily out with its freight of death, into the East River.

Oh, what a change was there, from the dull and murky gloom of Bellevue! Down upon the broad expanse of waters came the morning sunshine. Rosy and golden it fell upon the waves, as they tossed and rolled and dimpled to the soft spring breeze. Here a current of liquid gold went eddying in and out, like the trail of a comet; there, lay the smooth, calm surface, rosy with the young light, or blackened by the shadow of an overhanging bank. Behind them lay New York city, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, the tall masts and steeples rising through a sea of hazy gold, and belted with the silvery flash of the river. The banks, on either side, were clothed with soft, vivid green, broken with dog-wood trees in full flower, and maples in the first sweet crimson of their foliage. The fragrance from these banks swept down upon the water and trembled through the air.

All this seemed like the very atmosphere of paradise to those little girls, after their dreary sojourn in the pestilential gloom of Bellevue. They could not realize that the mother, the benefactress, whose smile had been so sweet only a few days before, was really and truly gone. She was there close by; their little hands could touch her coffin; the scent of flowers stealing through its chinks, constantly reminded them of the mournful truth; but, with everything so bright and lovely around, they could not believe in the reality. The motion of the boat—the melodious dip of the oars in the water—these things were new and strange. There was nothing like death in it all save the heap of coffins, and from them they shrank shuddering and appalled.

As the boat crept by Hurl Gate, a fearful change came over them. The glorious beauty of nature conflicting with the gloom of death; the frightful jokes of the crew; the boiling waters, leaping up only a few yards off, in long glittering flashes, like banners of silver, torn and weltering in the breeze; the sky bending over them deeply blue, and flooded with pleasant sunshine; the ribald criticisms of those coarse men, and the death-heap under which the sluggish boat toiled through the waters—all these sharp contrasts were enough to have unsettled the nerves of strong manhood. To those children, worn out and heartbroken, it brought strange and fearful excitement. Their hands were interlinked; a thrill of keen magnetic sympathy shot through their frames. They looked at the bright water leaping and flashing so near. A wild temptation came over them, to spring from the shadow of that death-heap into the sparkling flood. This thrilling desire assailed them both at once—their hands clung closer—their eyes, a moment before so heavy and sad, gleamed with intense meaning. They crept close to the side of the boat.

"We are alone—we are all alone in the wide, wide world," said Isabel, in a low voice that thrilled through and through the heart that listened.

Isabel leaned over the boat; she was gazing wistfully into the water.

"One spring, Mary, and we both have a home."

The child stood up, her foot was on the edge of the boat, her face was turned toward Hurl Gate.

Mary Fuller started, as if from a wild dream, and flung her arms around the half frenzied child, standing there upon the threshold of a great crime.

"Isabel, oh, Isabel! can we leave her here, all alone?"

The child turned her head, her foot was slowly withdrawn, and her eyes sank to her mother's coffin. She fell into Mary's arms, and burst into a wild passion of tears. Filled with the same terrible feelings, Mary Fuller could scarcely restrain the wild sobs that broke to her lips. She clung close to Isabel, and, cowering down in the boat, afraid to trust themselves with another sight of the rushing waters that had so tempted them, the little creatures remained motionless till they reached Randall's Island.

All this passed before the stolid crew, and they did not know it, but joked and jeered each other in the midst of death, as if their horrid duties had been a pastime. These men were so used to the King of Terrors, that his aspect had ceased to disturb them.

They landed on Randall's Island, a lovely spot at all seasons, but now teaming with luxuriant beauty. The apple orchards were all in blossom. The cherry and pear trees, white as if a snow-storm had drifted over them. The oak groves were robed with delicate foliage, and a carpet of young grass lay everywhere around. Again the contrast between nature and that death-freight was more than painful.

Two or three men came down to the landing with wheelbarrows, and the boat was disencumbered of its gloomy load. The little girls sat down upon the shore, watching each load as it was trundled away. At length, the men brought the coffin in which their hearts rested, and laid it across a hand barrow. They arose silently, and followed it hand and hand.

They turned into an orchard; the blossoming apple boughs drooped over the coffin as it passed under them. A host of birds made the fragrant air tremble with their songs. The single wheel of the hand-barrow crushed hundreds of wild flowers down in the tender grass. Once more it seemed like a dream to those young hearts. Surely, surely it could not be her grave they were approaching through all this labyrinth of blossoms!

All at once they came into an open space. The world of flowers was left behind. Thickets and broken hillocks were on the right and left. A sweep of green sward fell gently down to the water; here the turf was torn up and mangled, and long deep ridges of fresh soil swept downward toward the shore. Some were heaped high with fresh mould and around them all the young grass lay trampled and dead. There was one deep trench open half the way down, into which a man leaped, while the others handed down the coffins ranged on either side the trench. With their hands clinging together, the children crept close to the brink of the abyss and looked down. One low cry and, in pale silence, they recoiled back to the coffin and sunk down by it, like twin flowers broken at the stem.

An old man rose up from the trench, casting down his spade and dashing the soil from his hands, rejoicing that his task was over for that day; but his eyes fell upon the mournful group we have described.

"What, another yet!" he muttered, with sullen discontent, as he moved forward. The little girls heard his approach and crept closer to the coffin.

"Not there! oh, do not put her there!" cried Isabel, lifting her ashen face to the man.

The pauper-sexton shook his head.

"This is always the way," he muttered, "when the friends are allowed to come here, we are sure of trouble!"

"Is there no other place? oh, do not put her with all them!"

So pleaded Mary, rising to her feet, and taking hold of the old man's garments.

"In all this island is there no room where one person can be buried alone?"

"If you have a dollar to pay for the trouble—yes," answered the old man, softened by her distress.

"A dollar!"

The child turned away in utter despondency. Where on the wide earth was she to find a dollar? Isabel looked at her with mournful solicitude. A dollar! she would have given her young life for that little sum of money; but, alas! even her life would not procure so much.

The old man stood gazing upon those little pale faces, the one so beautiful, the other vivid and wild with intense feeling. His heart was touched, and going back to the trench he took up his spade.

"Come and point out the place where you would like to have her buried, and I will do the work for nothing," he said; "as likely as not my little grandchildren will some day be crying over me for want of a dollar."

The old man seemed like an angel to those little girls. They could not speak from fullness of gratitude, but followed the grave digger back towards the orchard. Here the earth was broken, and rendered uneven by some fifty or sixty hillocks; some marked by a single pine board, others without even this frail memorial by which the death-couch might be traced.

On the outskirts of this humble burial-place they found a fragment of rock, half buried in the rich turf, and overrun with wild flowers, mingled with fresh young moss. An apple-tree sheltered this spot, and a honeysuckle-vine had taken root in a cleft of the rock, around which its young tendrils lay, covered with budding foliage.

The little girls pointed out this spot, and the old man kindly sent them away, before he sunk his spade in the turf.

When his task was done he came toward them, wiping the drops from his forehead. The sexton was poor, but out of the feeble strength left to his old age, he had given something to alleviate distress greater than his own. A consciousness of this made his voice peculiarly gentle, as he called a man from the trench to aid in the humble funeral of Jane Chester.

Again that coffin was borne beneath the sweeping boughs of the orchard, and lowered into its solitary grave, amid the sweet breath of their restless blossoms. The two children followed it with meek and tearful gratitude. The horrors of the tomb seemed nothing to them now, that the beloved form was secure of a quiet resting-place. The dread of seeing her cast into that trench had swallowed up all minor feelings. It seemed like leaving her there in a holy sleep, when the old man led them from the grave. They knew that it was a sleep from which their grief could never arouse her, but still they went away, greatly comforted.