But few of the villagers thought of her this afternoon.  Their sympathies were all with Mrs. Campbell; and when at the close of the services she approached to take a last look of her darling, they closed around her with exclamations of grief and tears of pity, though even then some did not fail to note and afterwards comment upon the great length of her costly veil, and the width of its hem!  It was a long procession which followed Ella Campbell to the grave, and with bowed heads and hats uplifted, the spectators stood by while the coffin was lowered to the earth; and then, as the Campbell carriage drove slowly away, they dispersed to their homes, speaking, it may be, more tenderly to their own little ones, and shuddering to think how easily it might have been themselves who were bereaved.

Dark and dreary was the house to which Mrs. Campbell returned.  On the stairs there was no patter of childish feet.  In the halls there was no sound of a merry voice, and on her bosom rested no little golden head, for the weeping mother was childless.  Close the shutters and drop the rich damask curtains, so that no ray of sunlight, or fragrance of summer flowers may find entrance there to mock her grief.  In all Chicopee was there a heart so crushed and bleeding as hers?  Yes, on the grass-plat at the foot of Mrs. Bender’s garden an orphan girl was pouring out her sorrow in tears which almost blistered her eyelids as they fell.

Alice at last was sleeping, and Mary had come out to weep alone where there were none to see or hear.  For her the future was dark and cheerless as midnight.  No friends, no money, and no home, except the poor-house, from which young as she was, she instinctively shrank.

“My mother, oh, my mother,” she cried, as she stretched her hands towards the clear blue sky, now that mother’s home, “Why didn’t I die too?”

There was a step upon the grass, and looking up Mary saw standing near her, Mrs. Campbell’s English girl, Hannah.  She had always evinced a liking for Mrs. Howard’s family, and now after finishing her dishes, and trying in vain to speak a word of consolation to her mistress, who refused to be comforted, she had stolen away to Mrs. Bender’s, ostensibly to see all the orphans, but, in reality to see Ella, who had always been her favorite.  She had entered through the garden gate, and came upon Mary just as she uttered the words, “Why didn’t I die too?”

The sight of her grief touched Hannah’s heart, and sitting down by the little girl, she tried to comfort her.  Mary felt that her words and manner were prompted by real sympathy, and after a time she grew calm, and listened, while Hannah told her that “as soon as her mistress got so any body could go near her, she meant to ask her to take Ella Howard to fill the place of her own daughter.”

“They look as much alike as two beans,” said she, “and sposin’ Ella Howard ain’t exactly her own flesh and blood, she would grow into liking her, I know.”