Mrs. Bender, who like many others, courted the favor of the wealthy, and tried to fancy herself on intimate terms with them, no sooner heard of Mrs. Campbell's affliction, than her own dangerous symptoms were forgotten, and springing up she exclaimed, "Ella Campbell dead! What'll her mother do? I must go to her right away. Hand me my double gown there in the closet, and give me my lace cap in the lower draw, and mind you have the tea-kettle biled agin I get back." "But, mother," said Billy, as he prepared to obey her, "Mrs. Campbell is rich, and there are enough who will pity her. If you go any where, suppose you stop at Mrs. Howard's, and comfort poor Mary, who cries all the time because she and Alice have got to go to the poor-house." "Of course they'll go there, and they orto be thankful they've got so good a place--Get away.--That ain't my double gown;--that's a cloak. Don't you know a cloak from a double gown?" "Yes, yes," said Billy, whose mind was not upon his mother's toilet--"but," he continued, "I want to ask you, can't we,--couldn't you take them for a few days, and perhaps something may turn up." "William Bender," said the highly astonished lady what can you mean? A poor sick woman like me, with one foot in the grave, take the charge of three pauper children! I shan't do it, and you needn't think of it." "But, mother," persisted Billy, who could generally coax her to do as he liked, "it's only for a few days, and they'll not be much trouble or expense, for I'll work enough harder to make it up." "I have said _no_ once, William Bender, and when _I_ say no, I mean no," was the answer. Billy knew she would be less decided the next time the subject was broached, so for the present, he dropped it, and taking his cap he returned to Mrs. Howard's, while his mother started for Mrs. Campbell's. Next morning between the hours of nine and ten, the tolling bell sent forth its sad summons, and ere long a few of the villagers were moving towards the brown cottage, where in the same plain coffin slept the mother and her only boy. Near them sat Ella, occasionally looking with childish curiosity at the strangers around her, or leaning forward to peep at the tips of the new morocco shoes which Mrs. Johnson had kindly given her; then, when her eye fell upon the coffin, she would burst into such an agony of weeping that many of the villagers also wept in sympathy, and as they stroked her soft hair, thought, "how much more she loved her mother than did Mary," who, without a tear upon her cheek, sat there immovable, gazing fixedly upon the marble face of her mother. Alice was not present, for Billy had not only succeeded in winning his mother's consent to take the children for a few days, but he had also coaxed her to say that Alice might come before the funeral, on condition that he would remain at home and take care of her. This he did willingly, for Alice, who had been accustomed to see him would now go to no one else except Mary.