Poor little Kate!  In that dread moment when she found herself sinking to her cold bed among the water-weeds, she had, failing all other support, clasped her left hand with her right and gone down to darkness.  And as she went, so now came her lifeless body.  The right hand clasped tightly the four little white fingers of the left.

Poor little Kate!  How white as pearl her face was, turned up toward that Sabbath sky!  There was not a spot upon it.  The dreaded leeches had done their work.

She, whom everybody had called sweet, looked sweeter now than ever.  Death had been kind to the child at the last, and had stroked away every trace of terror, and of the short anguish she had suffered when she felt herself cast off by the craven soul she trusted.  What might the long anguish have been had she lived!

[Illustration:  HIS UNSELFISH LOVE FOUND A MELANCHOLY RECOMPENSE.]

CHAPTER XXV.

AFTERWARDS.

The funeral was over, and there were two fresh graves—­the only ones in the bit of prairie set apart for a graveyard.  I have written enough in this melancholy strain.  Why should I pause to describe in detail the solemn services held in the grove by the lake?  It is enough that the land-shark forgot his illegal traffic in claims; the money-lender ceased for one day to talk of mortgages and per cent and foreclosure; the fat gentleman left his corner-lots.  Plausaby’s bland face was wet with tears of sincere grief, and Mr. Minorkey pressed his hand to his chest and coughed more despairingly than ever.  The grove in which the meeting was held commanded a view of the lake at the very place where the accident occurred.  The nine survivors sat upon the front seat of all; the friends of the deceased were all there, and, most pathetic sight of all, the two mute white faces of the drowned were exposed to view.  The people wept before the tremulous voice of the minister had begun the service, and there was so much weeping that the preacher could say but little.  Poor Mrs. Plausaby was nearly heart-broken.  Nothing could have been more pathetic than her absurd mingling for two days of the sincerest grief and an anxious questioning about her mourning-dress.  She would ask Isa’s opinion concerning her veil, and then sit down and cry piteously the next minute.  And now she was hopeless and utterly disconsolate at the loss of her little Katy, but wondering all the time whether Isa could not have fixed her bonnet so that it would not have looked quite so plain.

The old minister preached on “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.”  I am afraid he said some things which the liberalism of to-day would think unfit—­we all have heresies nowadays; it is quite the style.  But at least the old man reminded them that there were better investments than corner-lots, and that even mortgages with waivers in them will be brought into judgment.  His solemn words could not have failed entirely of doing good.