For the three little children had been left alone in the room below, and, disturbed by the absence of father and mother, were not asleep; one of them had begun to cry a little at intervals. The farmer went down, his clumsy boots making no sound on the uncarpeted stairway, so careful was his tread. Madam Carroll sat down on the edge of the poor bed, and fanned the sleeping face; the eyes were closed, the long, dark lashes lay on the thin cheeks, the breath came slowly through the slightly parted lips. The farmer's wife began to pray in a low voice; she was a devout Baptist, and she had had her pastor there in the afternoon, and had fancied that the dying man was conscious for a time, and that he had listened and responded. She had grown fond of the poor musician in taking care of him, and the tears rolled down her sunburned cheeks as she prayed. Madam Carroll remained calm; she moved the fan with even sweep to and fro. She had taken off her bonnet, as the night was warm, and with her golden curls, her pink-tinted complexion, and the same pretty dress she had worn to church in the morning, she was a contrast to the rough, bare room, to the farmer's wife, in her coarse homespun gown, and even to her own daughter, who, in her plain black dress, her face pale and sad, was standing near. An hour passed. The child's wail below had now in it the unmistakable sound of suffering. "Pray go down," said Madam Carroll; "I am sure your baby needs you." "But I don't like to leave you, Madam Carroll; it doesn't seem right," the woman answered, yet listening, too, at the same time, to the baby's wail below. "You need have no hesitation. I have had experience of this kind before; and besides, I do not easily lose my self-possession." "Yes, you _hev_ got a strong hold on yersel," said the farmer's wife admiringly. They spoke in low tones, though sounds of earth could no longer penetrate to that gray, still border-land which the sleeper's soul was crossing. "I know you keer for the poor young man; you keer for him as much as I do. For yer see he ain't got no mother to be sorry for him, poor fellow," she continued, laying her rough hand tenderly on his head; "and you and me knows, Madam Carroll, how his mother'd feel. There ain't nothing like the way a mother keers for her boy." Sara came forward. "I am sure your child needs you, Mrs. Walley," she said; "please go down at once. I promise to call you if anything should be needed." The child was crying again, and the mother went. Sara softly closed the door. It had not been closed until then.