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“Like the ring grandpa gave you?I am so sick, grandma.”

“Yes, gold like that. And all the houses are built of silver and gold, and the people all have wings, so when they get tired walking they can fly, and– “

“I am so sick, grandma.”

“And all the dolls are alive,” said Old Woman Magoun.”Dolls like yours can run, and talk, and love you back again.”

Lily had her poor old rag doll in bed with her, clasped close to her agonized little heart. She tried very hard with her eyes, whose pupils were so dilated that they looked black, to see her grandmother’s face when she said that, but she could not.”It is dark,” she moaned, feebly.

“There where you are going it is always light,” said the grandmother, “and the commonest things shine like that breastpin Mrs. Lawyer Mason had on to-day.”

Lily moaned pitifully, and said something incoherent. Delirium was commencing. Presently she sat straight up in bed and raved; but even then her grandmother’s wonderful compelling voice had an influence over her.

“You will come to a gate with all the colors of the rainbow,” said her grandmother; “and it will open, and you will go right in and walk up the gold street, and cross the field where the blue flowers come up to your knees, until you find your mother, and she will take you home where you are going to live. She has a little white room all ready for you, white curtains at the windows, and a little white looking-glass, and when you look in it you will see– “

“What will I see?I am so sick, grandma.”

“You will see a face like yours, only it’s an angel’s; and there will be a little white bed, and you can lay down an’ rest.”

“Won’t I be sick, grandma?” asked Lily. Then she moaned and babbled wildly, although she seemed to understand through it all what her grandmother said.

“No, you will never be sick anymore. Talkin’ about sickness won’t mean anything to you.”

“It continued. Lily talked on wildly, and her grandmother’s great voice of soothing never ceased, until the child fell into a deep sleep, or what resembled sleep; but she lay stiffly in that sleep, and a candle flashed before her eyes made no impression on them.

Then it was that Nelson Barry came. Jim Willis waited outside the door. When Nelson entered he found Old Woman Magoun on her knees beside the bed, weeping with dry eyes and a might of agony which fairly shook Nelson Barry, the degenerate of a fine old race.

“Is she sick?” he asked, in a hushed voice.

Old Woman Magoun gave another terrible sob, which sounded like the gasp of one dying.

“Sally Jinks said that Lily was sick from eating milk and sour apples,” said Barry, in a tremulous voice.”I remember that her mother was very sick once from eating them.”

Lily lay still, and her grandmother on her knees shook with her terrible sobs.

Suddenly Nelson Barry started.”I guess I had better go to Greenham for a doctor if she’s as bad as that,” he said. He went close to the bed and looked at the sick child. He gave a great start. Then he felt of her hands and reached down under the bedclothes for her little feet.”Her hands and feet are like ice,” he cried out.”Good God! why didn’t you send for some one–for me–before?Why, she’s dying; she’s almost gone!”

Barry rushed out and spoke to Jim Willis, who turned pale and came in and stood by the bedside.

“She’s almost gone,” he said, in a hushed whisper.

“There’s no use going for the doctor; she’d be dead before he got here,” said Nelson, and he stood regarding the passing child with a strange, sad face–unutterably sad, because of his incapability of the truest sadness.

“Poor little thing, she’s past suffering, anyhow,” said the other man, and his own face also was sad with a puzzled, mystified sadness.

Lily died that night. There was quite a commotion in Barry’s Ford until after the funeral, it was all so sudden, and then everything went on as usual. Old Woman Magoun continued to live as she had done before. She supported herself by the produce of her tiny farm; she was very industrious, but people said that she was a trifle touched, since every time she went over the log bridge with her eggs or her garden vegetables to sell in Greenham, she carried with her, as one might have carried an infant, Lily’s old rag doll.