Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/57

Rh soon the children were cuddled in each other's arms, feeling warmer than they had felt for many a night past. It was a long time, however, before they could get to sleep. To Nelly especially was it strange. And thoughts too deep for them to express kept crowding into their minds, keeping them wide awake.

At length, however, a feeling of drowsiness began to creep over them, and they were just dropping off to sleep when they were startled by a footstep near them, and a hoarse voice muttering, as if in anguish, "O Death, what dost thou mean?"

For a moment, the children clutched each other in terror; then they heard the footsteps dying away in the distance, and their confidence returned again.

"Who could it be?" said Nelly.

"A bobby, I 'specks," said Benny; "but he ain't catched us, so we's safe 'nough now."

For awhile after they lay listening, but no other footsteps disturbed them, and soon balmy sleep stole over them, sealing their eyelids, and giving rest to their weary little heads and hearts.