Calton rose, he felt quite sick at this exhibition of human depravity, and longed to be away. As he was putting on his hat, however, the two girls entered with the doctor, who nodded to Kilsip, cast a sharp scrutinising glance at Calton, and then walked over to the bed. The two girls went back to their corner, and waited in silence for the end. Mother Guttersnipe had fallen back in the bed, with one claw-like hand clutching the pillow, as if to protect her beloved gold, and over her face a deadly paleness was spreading, which told the practised eye of the doctor that the end was near. He knelt down beside the bed for a moment, holding the candle to the dying woman's face. She opened her eyes, and muttered drowsily-- "Who's you? get out," but then she seemed to grasp the situation again, and she started up with a shrill yell, which made the hearers shudder, it was so weird and eerie. "My money!" she yelled, clasping the pillow in her skinny arms. "It's all mine, ye shan't have it--cuss ye." The doctor arose from his knees, and shrugged his shoulders. "Not worth while doing anything," he said coolly, "she'll be dead soon." The old woman, mumbling over her pillow, caught the word, and burst into tears. "Dead! dead! my poor Rosanna, with 'er golden 'air, always lovin' 'er pore mother till 'e took 'er away, an' she came back to die--die--ooh!" Her voice died away in a long melancholy wail, that made the two girls in the corner shiver, and put their fingers in their ears. "My good woman," said the doctor, bending over the bed, "would you not like to see a minister?" She looked at him with her bright, beady eyes, already somewhat dimmed with the mists of death, and said, in a harsh, low whisper--"Why?" "Because you have only a short time to live," said the doctor, gently. "You are dying." Mother Guttersnipe sprang up, and seized his arm with a scream of terror. "Dyin', dyin'--no! no!" she wailed, clawing his sleeve. "I ain't fit to die--cuss me; save me--save me; I don't know where I'd go to, s'elp me--save me." The doctor tried to remove her hands, but she held on with wonderful tenacity. "It is impossible," he said briefly. The hag fell back in her bed. "I'll give you money to save me," she shrieked; "good money--all mine--all mine. See--see--'ere--suverains," and tearing her pillow open, she took out a canvas bag, and from it poured a gleaming stream of gold. Gold--gold--it rolled all over the bed, over the floor, away into the dark corners, yet no one touched it, so enchained were they by the horrible spectacle of the dying woman clinging to life. She clutched some of the shining pieces, and held them up to the three men as they stood silently beside the bed, but her hands trembled so that sovereigns kept falling from them on the floor with metallic clinks.