He lighted the candle, and his beating heart seemed to stop when he saw his mother's face. He seemed hardly to know whether it was his mother or no. "Shall I call--?" "Call nobody, my dear. Come here." He laid his cheek to hers. "Mother, you are dying," he murmured. "Yes, love, I am dying. It is no use calling any one. These little ones, Joel." "I will take care of them, mother." "You, my child! How should that be?" "Why not?" said the boy, raising himself, and standing at his best height. "Look at me, mother. I can work. I promise you--" His mother could not lift her hand, but she moved a finger in a way which checked him. "Promise nothing that may be too hard afterward," she said. "I promise to try then," he said; "that little sister shall live at home, and never go to the workhouse." He spoke cheerfully, though the candle-light glittered in the two streams of tears on his cheeks. "We can go on living here; and we shall be so--" It would not do. The sense of their coming desolation rushed over him in a way too terrible to be borne. He hid his face beside her, murmuring, "O mother! mother!" His mother found strength to move her hand now. She stroked his head with a trembling touch, which he seemed to feel as long as he lived. She could not say much more. She told him she had no fear for any of them. They would be taken care of. She advised him not to waken the little ones, who were sound asleep on the other side of her, and begged him to lie down himself till daylight, and try to sleep, when she should be gone. This was the last thing she said. The candle was very low; but before it went out, she was gone. Joel had always done what his mother wished; but he could not obey her in the last thing she had said. He lighted another candle when the first went out; and sat thinking, till the gray dawn began to show through the window. When he called the neighbors, they were astonished at his quietness. He had taken up the children, and dressed them, and made the room tidy, and lighted the fire, before he told any body what had happened. And when he opened the door, his little sister was in his arms. She was two years old, and could walk, of course; but she liked being in Joel's arms. Poor Willy was the most confounded. He stood with his pinafore at his mouth, staring at the bed, and wondering that his mother lay so still. If the neighbors were astonished at Joel that morning, they might be more so at some things they saw afterward; but they were not. Every thing seemed done so naturally; and the boy evidently considered what he had to do so much a matter of course, that less sensation was excited than about many smaller things.