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.