There they found her, poor Flora May. Lying among the lily pads, her lovely hair twined about the brown stems, her fair face turned upwards, the clear shallow water dimpling and wavering above her, so that she seemed to smile at them in faint, disdainful mockery; so they found her, lying quietly in the place of her rest. * * * * * "Don't cry, mother! don't ye! the Lord has took His poor lamb home. Don't take on so, Lucy!" Thus Jacob, patting his wife's shoulder with clumsy, tender hand. He had never seen her so overcome; the calm, self-contained woman was crying and sobbing like a child. But now she collected herself with an effort, and dried her eyes. "I know, Jacob! I know I hadn't ought; I know she's better off; but--'tis so pitiful! Oh, 'tis so pitiful! She couldn't help it, my poor girl; she couldn't help it. 'Twas stronger than her. And, oh, Jacob, I can't but think--if her father had been--different--" "There, Lucy! There! Such things is beyond us." "They hadn't ought to be!" cried Lucy Bailey, and her tears broke out afresh. "They hadn't ought to be beyond us. The Lord intended we should live clean and decent, and made us accordin'; and them as don't, it's their children must pay, like the Bible says. But what keeps comin' back and back on my mind is--she was so innocent and so pretty! Full as pretty as what Mary is, to my thinkin'. Seein' her lyin' there, so pretty--oh, so pretty! I couldn't but think--I couldn't but think--if she had had a fair chance--" If she had had a fair chance! So Pippin thought, as he stood by the little white bed in the narrow room. He had carried her home in his young strong arms, had laid her here--reverently, as he would have laid a royal princess--on the bed where she had tossed and moaned her heart out for him; now she had no thought for him, she was all for sleep. He had left her to the women, and gone to join the older men, a sorrowful little group about the kitchen fire; but now, when all the house was still, there could be no harm in his entering the quiet room once more, humbly, with bowed head, to say a word of farewell to the poor sweet pretty creatur'; to say a little prayer, too, and maybe--whisperin' like, not to wake a soul--to sing a little hymn, seeing she used to set by his singing. He looked round the room, neat and bare, yet a girl's room, with pretty touches here and there: a bird's nest on a mossy twig, a bunch of feathery grasses in a graceful jug, bright Christmas cards framing the little mirror, drooping over them a necklace of wooden beads carved by Brand for his little girl. Beside these things, on a stand by the bedside, some pond lilies in a glass bowl, drooping with folded petals. Pippin shivered, and his eyes turned to the still figure, the white lovely face.