"Mother, look up, mother, I am going." The woman turned heavily and lifted her head. "I am going, mother." "Very well, I can't help it," muttered the mother, heavily. "I don't know where they will take us, or if we shall ever see one another again," persisted the child; "but, oh, mother before we part, tell me how I can make you love me?" "If there is a drop of brandy anywhere about, bring it and I'll love you dearly, indeed I will, little Mary; I ain't at all well, Mary, and a drop of brandy is good for sickness; get some, that's a dear; I'm very fond of you, Mary!" "Mother, I cannot; but, if you will never ask for it again, I will. Oh, I will die for you; I hav'n't anything but my life to give--nor that," she added, with a sudden thought, "for it belongs to God; I have nothing." Mrs. Fuller had fallen asleep, and heard nothing of this. So Mary turned away sorrowful, but not altogether hopeless. Those who trust in God never are. CHAPTER XIX. A SPRING MORNING--AND A PAUPER BURIAL. Not here--not here with our lovely dead-- Oh, give one spot of sacred earth! Where the grass may wave, above her head, And the sweet, wild flowers have holy birth. Oh, grant our prayer--our solemn prayer-- A lonely grave--and fresh, green sod-- There is earth around us everywhere; And the mother earth belongs to God. A long heavy boat lay at the Bellevue wharf. In the bow sat half a dozen paupers, who started up now and then to range the coffins that came in wheelbarrow loads from a little brick building near the wharf. A name was marked rudely in chalk upon the lid of each coffin, and this was all that those who brought them knew or cared about the senseless forms they carried. Out from that brick house, and along the wharf, they were trundled amid a swarm of loungers, who helped eagerly to lower them into the boat. It was the harvest time of death at Bellevue, and those pine coffins were garnered by tens and twenties each day. That morning the weight of twenty-four human forms, all breathing souls fifteen hours before, sunk that stout boat to the water's edge. When the last coffin came alone upon the handbarrow, Crofts accompanied it, followed by two little girls. With his own hands he helped to lower that coffin into the boat, and those paupers who could read saw Jane Chester's name chalked upon the lid. As Crofts settled his burden gently down across an empty seat, a faint odor of flowers stole through the crevices, and when the rude sail cloth was flung carelessly over the rest, he laid a strip of clean, coarse linen over this coffin, then clambering across to the man who sat with the helm in his hand, he imparted some directions to him in a low voice. "What, up to Randall's Island! Take those two children in the boat there and back to the nurseries! It can't be done, I tell you," said the man, sulkily. "I won't do it without the Superintendent's order, nor then either, if I can help myself."