Through the door she caught sight of her mistress, whose white, wasted face wrung from her that cry. Stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, she waited until toast, tea, egg, and all had disappeared, then, with the exclamation, "She's et 'em all up slick and clean," she walked into the room.

It would be impossible to describe that meeting, when the poor sick woman bowed her weary head upon the motherly bosom of her faithful domestic, weeping most piteously while Janet folded her lovingly in her arms, saying to her soothingly, "Nay, now, Matty darling--nay, my bonnie bird--take it easy like--take is easy, and you'll feel better."

"You won't leave me, will you?" sobbed Matty, feeling that it would not be hard to die with Janet standing near.

"No, honey, no," answered Janet, "I'll stay till one or t'other of us is carried down the walk and across the common where them gravestones is standin', which I noticed when I drove up."

"It will be me, Janet. It will be me," said Matty. "They will bury me beneath the willows, for the other one is lying there, oh, so peacefully."

Louis was by this time awake, and taking him upon her lap Janet laughed and cried alternately, mentally resolving that so long as she should live, she would befriend the little helpless boy, whose face, she said, "was far winsomer than any she had ever seen."

Then followed many mutual inquiries, during which Matty learned that Janet was a widow, and had really come to stay if necessary.

"I'm able now to live as I please, for I've got property," said Janet, again consulting the silver watch, as she usually did when speaking of her husband's will.