By a strong effort, she laid her head on James Hardy's shoulder, and grasped her nurse's hard, honest hand. "I come, my father!" she exclaimed, and all was over.
"To die so, in her prime, her youth, her beauty; to be left to die, because they say there's no cure for it; they never tried to cure her!" exclaimed the nurse, between her bursts of grief—"no place to shelter her—no one to see to her—no proper food, or air, or care—my heart's jewel—who cared for all, when she had it! Still, the Lord is merciful; another week, and I should have had nothing but a drop of cold water to moisten her lips, and no bed for her to lie on. I kept that to the last, anyhow; and now it may go; it must go; small loss; what matter what comes of the likes of me, when such as her could have no help! I'll beg from door to door, 'till I raise enough to lay her by her father's side, in the churchyard of ould Chelsea." But that effort, at all events, was not needed; the hospital was astir; the sergeant-major was remembered; and the church-bell tolled when Lucy was laid in her father's grave, in the Churchyard of Old Chelsea.
