Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/125

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Mrs. Ogilvie's Local Color

the disposition of what had been John Ogilvie, and this was done by two "Searchlight" men who had followed the newspaper women uptown. In their quiet, capable way, they assumed control of the practical end of the situation, while the doctors and the trained nurse who had been with the patient talked with the widow in the little reception-room.

Miss Herrick remained in the Harlem apartment that night and listened to the steady tramp of her neighbor's feet in the next room. Up and down, all night long, they made their weary journey. There was nothing to be done. The "little woman" was meeting and bearing her trouble in her own way, and she had temporarily entrenched herself behind a barrier which even the most sympathetic dared not try to break down. Three days later, she laid her dead away in the little churchyard of the quiet town where she and John had met and loved and married. And her associates, from "The Searchlight" office, who had gone there for the funeral, looked at the black-robed figure across the church and wondered if this dry-eyed woman with the stricken face were really the little

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