f her own clothes, and softly undressed the stiff,
powerless form. There was no other bed in the house but the one in which
her father slept. So she tenderly lifted the body of her darling; and
was going to take it downstairs, but the mother opened her eyes, and
seeing what she was about, she said--"I am not worthy to touch her, I am
so wicked. I have spoken to you as I never should have spoken; but I
think you are very good. May I have my own child to lie in my arms for a
little while?"

Her voice was so strange a contrast to what it had been before she had
gone into the fit, that Susan hardly recognised it: it was now so
unspeakably soft, so irresistibly pleading; the features too had lost
their fierce expression, and were almost as placid as death. Susan could
not speak, but she carried the little child, and laid it in its mother's
arms; then, as she looked at them, something overpowered her, and she
knelt down, crying aloud--"Oh, my God, my God, have mercy on her, and
forgive and comfort her."

But the mother kept smiling, and stroking the little face, murmuring
soft, tender words, as if it were alive. She was going mad, Susan
thought; but she prayed on, and on, and ever still she prayed with
streaming eyes.

The doctor came with the draught. The mother took it, with docile
unconsciousness of its nature as medicine. The doctor sat by her; and
soon she fell asleep. Then he rose softly, and beckoning Susan to the
door, he spoke to her there.

"You must take the corpse out of her arms. She will not awake. That
draught will make her sleep for many hours. I will call before noon
again. It is now daylight. Good-by."

Susan shut him out; and then, gently extricating the dead child from its
mother's arms, she could not resist making her own quiet moan over her
darling. She tried to learn off its little placid face, dumb and pale
before her.

Not all the scalding tears of care
Shall wash away that vision fair;
Not all the thousand thoughts that rise,
Not all the sights that dim her eyes,
Shall e'er usurp the place
Of that little angel-face.

And then she remembered what remained to be done. She saw that all was
right in the house; her father was still dead asleep on the settle, in
spite of all the noise of the night. She went out through the quiet
streets, deserted still, although it was broad daylight, and to where the
Leighs lived. Mrs. Leigh, who kept her country hours,