A nurse some years younger than herself, but with less of character in her face, stood near the door. She approached this woman, and softly unclosing her hand revealed the money. "What! there have but four died to-day--you did not find that about them? I searched thoroughly myself, and none of them had a cent." "Never mind where it came from. You shall have a share, but remember I have got to work for it yet. Where is the woman they have just brought in?" "What, the slender woman with all that beautiful hair? She is about here, on the floor, I believe." "She must have a cot, I am determined on it," said the elder nurse, resolutely. "Those who pay us shall be first served," and the woman went on through the prostrate sick, searching eagerly for Mrs. Chester. "Yes, here she is, sure enough," talking softly to herself--"now let us see what can be done about a bed." The woman moved from cot to cot, gazing on the inmates, not with pity, she was used to their moans, but eagerly searching for a bed that promised soon to be empty. Her eyes fell upon the corpse that lay within a few paces of Mrs. Chester, and she approached the cot with gleeful alacrity, saying to her companion: "Oh, here is an empty bed--I thought it would not be long before we found something for her to lie on besides the floor. Go and call Crofts." The younger nurse went out, and directly there came two men into the ward, bearing a rude pine coffin between them. They trod heavily along the floor, knocking the coffin now and then against a cot till it jarred the helpless inmate, and thus they carried it down the whole length of the ward. They deposited the rude thing close by the blanket on which Mrs. Chester lay, and then went out, leaving the women to relieve the bed of its mournful burden. The younger nurse had brought with her a scant shroud, of the coarsest muslin, and there in the midst of the sick, one of the women put this grave garment on, while the other stealthily searched in the bosom of the corpse and under the pillow for any little valuable that the poor woman might have hoarded in her death-bed. After groping about awhile, the young nurse drew forth her hand with a low chuckle. It contained a bit of tissue paper, soiled and crumpled in a heap. A bank note! what else could it be? The two women looked at the paper and their eyes gleamed. It was not often that they found bank notes about the Bellevue paupers! How they longed to examine it then and there! But the sick were not all insensible, and the young woman thrust the treasure into her bosom, whispering as she stooped down to smooth the shroud: "By and by--of course we go halves to-day!" "That is fair and above board!" replied the other, folding the arms of the dead upon the pulseless bosom they had robbed, "there now, call in the men!"