. "Strange vanity!" muttered the one who
had not spoken before. "Her eyes are useless, and yet she is afraid she
may lose them."

Mercy's quick ears caught the whispered words. "It is not that," she
said passionately.

"No, gentlemen," said Greta, "you have mistaken her thought. Tell her
she runs no danger of her life."

The doctors smiled and laughed a little. "Oh, that's it, eh? Well, we
can tell her that with certainty."

Then there was another interchange of half-amused glances.

"Ah, we that be men, sirs, don't know the depth and tenderness of a
mother's heart," said Parson Christian. And Mercy turned toward him a
face that was full of gratitude. Greta took the child out of her arms
and hushed it to sleep in another room. Then she brought it back and put
it in its cradle that stood in the ingle.

"Come, Mercy," she said, "for the sake of your boy." And Mercy permitted
herself to be led from the kitchen.

"So there will be no danger," she said. "I shall not leave my boy. Who
said that? The doctor? Oh, good gracious, it's nothing. Only think, I
shall live to see him grow to be a great lad!"

Her whole face was now radiant.

"It will be nothing. Oh, no, it will be nothing. How silly it was to
think that he would live on, and grow up, and be a man, and I lie cold
in the church-yard, and me his mother! That was very childish, wasn't
it? But, then, I have been so childish since Ralphie came."

"There, lie and be quiet, and it will soon be over," said Greta.

"Let me kiss him first. Do let me kiss him! Only once. You know it's a
great risk, after all. And if he grew up--and I wasn't here, if--if--"

"There, dear Mercy, you must not cry again. It inflames your eyes, and
that can't be good for the doctors."

"No, no, I won't cry. You are very good; everybody is very good. Only
let me kiss my little Ralphie--just for the last."

Greta led her back to the side of the cot, and she spread herself over
it with outstretched arms, as the mother-bird poises with outstretched
wings over her brood. Then she rose, and her face was peaceful and
resigned.

The Laird Fisher sat down before the kitchen fire, with one arm on the
cradle-head. Parson Christian stood beside him. The old charcoal-burner
wept in silence, and the good parson's voice was too thick for the words
of comfort that rose to his lips.

The doctors followed into the bedroom. Mercy was lying tranquilly on her
bed. Her countenance was without expression