She heard the old man totter away,—how feebly she did not know. She heard him go out of the house, and shut the door behind him. But long as she waited and listened, she did not hear him return; and at length she came to the conclusion that he and the policeman must have started in pursuit of the thief, deferring their examination of the bedroom till later. It was a very simple thought of Mary's—helped on, perhaps, by her dread of meeting him, and her fear of leaving Daisy. She did once or twice wonder whether she was quite right not to go out and look after him. Yet, for Daisy's sake, how could she? Mary would not have had far to go. The shock of his loss was telling rapidly on the old man, and the brief strength of passion was fast dying away. He only managed to get as far as the garden-path. There he fell to the ground, having no power to rise again; and there, when morning dawned, he was found, lying helplessly, damp with the night dews. When they carried him indoors, and laid him on his bed, he only stared about muttering monotonously, "Gone! gone! gone!" like the knell of a passing bell. CHAPTER XIV. A MOTHER'S WORK. "THINGS are ever so much better than they used to be. Why, it feels like a different house," Janet Humphrey said to Mrs. Simmons, on the afternoon of the same Saturday when old Isaac Meads found his treasure to have vanished. The Humphreys had just been enjoying a good hot dinner, with "father" of course to share it, and Mrs. Simmons had dropped in afterwards, to find Janet, tidy and smiling, with the baby in her arms. [Illustration: Mrs. Simmons had dropped in afterwards, to find Janet, tidy and smiling, with the baby in her arms.] "I'm sure I'm glad to hear it," said Betsy Simmons; "and I hope it'll go on." "I hope so too," said Janet. "I shouldn't like to go back and live all in a mess again. You haven't been near me for a great while, Mrs. Simmons." "Well, no; it does seem a good bit," said Mrs. Simmons. "But I haven't had time to spare. Fact is, whenever I can I just go across, and sit with Miss Daisy for an hour, and let Mrs. Davis get out for a little fresh air. She ain't a strong woman, and the nursing's been a long pull upon her. And I'm sure nobody knows how much longer it mayn't go on. How's your husband to-day, Mrs. Humphrey?" "He's quite well," Janet said; "and he's doing a lot of carpentering. It's wonderful how Jem has took to carpentering lately. He always was a good hand at it, but he used to say it wasn't worth while, and I couldn't get him to do anything. And now he's talking of making all sorts of things. Just look here, he's put up these shelves for me in the corner, so as I might have more room on the dresser. And he's just now making a book-case, and we mean to get it full of books too, in time. I don't see why we shouldn't. And Tommy broke the leg of a chair lately, and Jem got up early next morning and mended it. Why, if I'd asked him a while back—"