as checked for a while. The baby gave a new interest and a new
pleasure to life, and as we could not afford a nurse I had plenty to do
in looking after his small majesty. My energy in reading became less
feverish when it was done by the side of the baby's cradle, and the
little one's presence almost healed the abiding pain of my mother's
loss.

I may pass very quickly over the next two years. In August, 1870, a
little sister was born to my son, and the recovery was slow and
tedious, for my general health had been failing for some time.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Dighton's Art Studio, Cheltenham_.
ANNIE BESANT 1869.]

The boy was a bright, healthy little fellow, but the girl was delicate
from birth, suffering from her mother's unhappiness, and born somewhat
prematurely in consequence of a shock. When, in the spring of 1871, the
two children caught the whooping cough, my Mabel's delicacy made the
ordeal well-nigh fatal to her. She was very young for so trying a
disease, and after a while bronchitis set in and was followed by
congestion of the lungs. For weeks she lay in hourly peril of death We
arranged a screen round the fire like a tent, and kept it full of steam
to ease the panting breath; and there I sat, day and night, all through
those weary weeks, the tortured baby on my knees. I loved my little
ones passionately, for their clinging love soothed the aching at my
heart, and their baby eyes could not critically scan the unhappiness
that grew deeper month by month; and that steam-filled tent became my
world, and there, alone, I fought with Death for my child. The doctor
said that recovery was impossible, and that in one of the paroxysms of
coughing she must die; the most distressing thing was that, at last,
even a drop or two of milk would bring on the terrible convulsive
choking, and it seemed cruel to add to the pain of the apparently dying
child. At length, one morning the doctor said she could not last
through the day; I had sent for him hurriedly, for the body had
suddenly swollen up as a result of the perforation of one of the
pleurae, and the consequent escape of air into the cavity of the chest.
While he was there one of the fits of coughing came on, and it seemed
as though it must be the last. He took a small bottle of chloroform out
of his pocket, and putting a drop on a handkerchief held it near the
child's face, till the drug soothed the convulsive struggle. "It can't
do any harm at this stag