Physical correction in the form of slight taps, which they
always required, and in which Polly was strong, was only withheld now
from a sense of their weak condition. But in vain; they succumbed to the
fell disease,--they always died at this juncture,--and Polly was left
alone. She thought of the little church where she had once seen a
funeral, and remembered the nice smell of the flowers; she dwelt with
melancholy satisfaction of the nine little tombstones in the graveyard,
each with an inscription, and looked forward with gentle anticipation to
the long summer days when, with Lady Mary in her lap, she would sit on
those graves clad in the deepest mourning. The fact that the unhappy
victims at times moved as it were uneasily in their graves, or snored,
did not affect Polly's imaginative contemplation, nor withhold the tears
that gathered in her round eyes.
Presently, the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscape
beyond began to be more confused, and sometimes to disappear entirely
and reappear again with startling distinctness. Then a sound of rippling
water from the little stream that flowed from the mouth of the tunnel
soothed her and seemed to carry her away with it, and then everything
was dark.
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