Oh, go on, Louise, go on!"

"Well then, Ma'm'selle, if you believe me, those two doctors--neither
of 'em kin, or even friends till then--went to work and made all the
preparations, while my husband went off to borrow lights. The biggest
one tied a mattress on the table, and the assistant spread out the
bright little knives.

"You who have not been through it all, Ma'm'selle, can't know what it
is to have your own little one in your lap, to know that those things
are to be used upon him to pierce his tender flesh, and if the hand
that guides them be not sure, that they may kill him.

"When all was ready, Doctor Faron took off his cravat, then lifted my
child from my arms and laid him on the mattress, in the midst of the
lamps, and said to my poor man:--

"'You will hold his head, and your wife his feet. Joseph will pass me
the instruments. You've brought a breathing-tube with you, my son?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"My husband was as white as a sheet by this; and when I saw him about
to take his place with his hands shaking so much, it scared me, so I
said:--

"'Doctor, please let me hold his head!"

"'But my poor woman, if you should tremble?'

"'Please let me do it, doctor!'

"'Be it so, then;' and then added with a bright look at me, and a
cheering smile, 'we shall save him for you, my dear; you are a brave
little woman and you deserve it.'

"Yes, and save him he did! God bless him! saved him as truly as if he
had snatched him from the depths of the river."

"And you didn't tremble, Louise?"

"You may depend on that. If I had, it would have been the last of my
child."

"How in the world did you keep yourself steady?"

"The Lord knows; but I was like a rock. When you must, you must, I
suppose."

"And you had to behold every detail of that operation?"

"Yes, indeed; and often have I dreamed it over since. His poor little
neck laid open, and the veins, which the doctor pushed aside with his
fingers, and the little silver tube which he inserted, and all that;
and then the face of the child, changing as the air passed into his
lungs. You've seen a lamp almost out, when you pour in oil? It was
like that. They had laid him there but half alive, with his eyes all
but set; and they gave him back to me, pale and with bloodless lips,
it is true, but with life in his looks, and breathing--breathing the
free, fresh air.

"'Kiss him, mother,' says the doctor, 'and put him to bed. Cover the
place with some light thing