“Mother doesn’t hear, Mis’ Gray,” said Rosa sobbing violently and throwing herself within the cold arms, kissing over and over the lips hitherto so responsive to her own.

“Mother dear, don’t you hear me?  Oh, wake up, please do!  I want you so.  I don’t know the way, and will get lost to go alone.”

“Rosa,” said Mrs. Gray almost gently, “git up and go and stay with grandpa till I tell you to come in here, and don’t you come before.  I’ll have to go down them steps ag’in fer an undertaker.”

“What is an undertaker, Mis’ Gray, and what do they do?  Will they take mother to the beautiful land?”

“Didn’t you hear me tell you to go in and stay with grandpa?  So go right this minute, and ask no more questions.  You do beat all fer askin’ questions, anyhow.  You might as well learn now as any time to mind, since I have to keep you till spring.  I ain’t the woman to go back on my word, but there ain’t many but what would, a-promisin’ under the circumstances.”

The little heart was nearly crushed with a feeling of perplexity and of indescribable dread, but, after all, there was some comfort in being alone with grandpa.

Stealing softly into his room, she found him sitting by the stove; and climbing up into his lap, pillowing her tired head upon his shoulder, the two lonely children, soothing each other, were soon fast asleep.

[Illustration]

IV.

Life with Mrs. Gray.

The events of the next few days were like a troubled dream to Rosa, as she in vain endeavored to comprehend the meaning of all the mysterious things going on about her.  Only once was she allowed to look upon the silent sleeper.  That was just before the arrival of the great black carriage, which, she was sure, would take her mother to the beautiful land.

“Rosa ain’t goin’ to the burial, I can tell you that,” announced Mrs. Gray to a neighbor, “or she’d be a-hollerin’ in her sleep all winter.  I’ve been broke of my rest so much that I ain’t goin’ to be bothered with her any more’n I can help from now on.  I didn’t promise to keep her only till spring, but I can make her run errands and sich, so it won’t cost me a great sight.  I can’t afford it no other way, and Mis’ Browning was unreasonable, anyhow, to ask it of me.”

Rosa and grandpa stood hand in hand, watching the small procession until it disappeared around the corner.

“Grandpa,” queried Rosa in a tearful voice, “do you know where that beautiful land is where folks never cough no more, and where they don’t have to pay rent?  That’s where mother’s going, and she told me to find out the way, so I could go too.”

“’Pears like I’d ought to know, child, fer that’s where Tom went.  I can’t think much somehow, but, Rosa,” he added tenderly, drawing her up closer to his side, “I don’t want you to go and leave me, fer I’m so lonesome.  Sary’s a good woman, yes, a very good woman, but it seems like I need you, too, dearie.”