tracted by
the infant, whose frame, till now motionless, began to be tremulous. Its
features sunk into a more ghastly expression. Its breathings were
difficult, and every effort to respire produced a convulsion harder than
the last.

The mother easily interpreted these tokens. The same mortal struggle
seemed to take place in her features as in those of her child. At length
her agony found way in a piercing shriek. The struggle in the infant was
past. Hope looked in vain for a new motion in its heart or its eyelids.
The lips were closed, and its breath was gone forever!

The grief which overwhelmed the unhappy parent was of that outrageous
and desperate kind which is wholly incompatible with thinking. A few
incoherent motions and screams, that rent the soul, were followed by a
deep swoon. She sunk upon the floor, pale and lifeless as her babe.

I need not describe the pangs which such a scene was adapted to produce
in me. These were rendered more acute by the helpless and ambiguous
situation in which I was placed. I was eager to bestow consolation and
succour, but was destitute of all means. I was plunged into
uncertainties and doubts. I gazed alternately at the infant and its
mother. I sighed. I wept. I even sobbed. I stooped down and took the
lifeless hand of the sufferer. I bathed it with my tears, and exclaimed,
"Ill-fated woman! unhappy mother! what shall I do for thy relief? How
shall I blunt the edge of this calamity, and rescue thee from new
evils?"

At this moment the door of the apartment was opened, and the younger of
the women whom I had seen below entered. Her looks betrayed the deepest
consternation and anxiety. Her eyes in a moment were fixed by the
decayed form and the sad features of Clemenza. She shuddered at this
spectacle, but was silent. She stood in the midst of the floor,
fluctuating and bewildered. I dropped the hand that I was holding, and
approached her.

"You have come," said I, "in good season. I know you not, but will
believe you to be good. You have a heart, it may be, not free from
corruption, but it is still capable of pity for the miseries of others.
You have a hand that refuses not its aid to the unhappy. See; there is
an infant dead. There is a mother whom grief has, for a time, deprived
of life. She has been oppressed and betrayed; been robbed of property
and reputation--but not of innocence. She is worthy of relief. Have you
arms to receive her? Have you sympathy, protection, an