"The man was taken away in the cart yesternight.

God alone knows who is alive in the house now.

There be seven little children there with their mother, but which of them be living and which dead by now no one knows.

I have heard nothing of the woman's voice these many hours.

Pray Heaven she be not dead--and the little helpless children all alone with the dead corpse!" "Oh, surely that could not be!" cried Gertrude.