ue glaze, seemed a prayer
for the pretty infant, whose head, a glistening tangle of yellow curls,
was nestled down against the bare white throat of the rigid mother;
while the dimpled hands pulled fretfully at the blood-spattered gown,
that was buttoned across the breast.

As clusters of wild snowy violets springing up in the midst of mud and
mire, in a noxious swamp, look doubly pure and sweet because of fetid
surroundings,--so this blossom of the slums, this human bud, with
petals of innocence folded close in the calyx of babyhood, seemed
supremely and pathetically fair, as she stood leaning against the cot,
the little rosy feet on tip-toe, pressing toward her mother; tears on
the pink velvet of the round cheeks, on the golden lashes beneath the
big blue eyes that grew purplish behind the mist.

The Macedonia of suffering humanity lies always within a stone's throw;
and the "cry for help" had found speedy response in more than one
benevolent heart.

A gray-haired widow from the "Sheltering Arms," to which Sister Serena
belonged, and a Sister of Charity from the hospital in X---, were
already ministering tenderly in the crowded ward; and both had essayed
to coax away the little figure clutching her mother's gown; but the
flaring white cap of one, and the flapping black drapery of the other,
frightened the trembling child.

Into the group stole Beryl; followed closely by the yellow cat, which
had become her shadow. Kneeling beside the baby, she kissed it softly,
took one of the hands, patted her own cheek with it, and lifted the cat
to the mattress, where it began to purr. The silky shock of yellow
curls was lifted, the wide eyes stared wonderingly first at Beryl's
face bending near, then at the cat; and by degrees, the lovely waif
suffered an arm to draw her farther and farther, while her rose-red
mouth parted in a smile, that showed six little teeth, and with one
hand fastened in the cat's fur, she was finally lifted and borne away;
Beryl's soft cheek nestled against hers, the bronzed head bent down to
the yellow ringlets; one arm holding the baby and the cat, while the
other white hand closed warmly over the child's bare, cold, dimpled
feet.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Fair and flowery as in the idyllic dawn when Theocritus sang its
pafatoral charms, was that sunny Sicilian land where, one May morning,
Leo Gordon wandered with a gay party in quest of historic sites, which
the slow silting of the stream of time ha