hink, with her experience Mary might have remembered the poor
mite would be famished afore this, not to mention that the milk in me
is beginnin' to hurt cruel."

She did off some of her clothes and lay down, and even slept a little
in spite of the pain in her breasts; but awoke a good two hours
before dawn, to find no baby restored to her arms, nor even (when she
looked) was it back in its cradle.

"This'll never do," said Lovey. On went her shawl again, and once
again she faced the night and hurried across the towans to St.
Gwithian's Chapel. There in her niche stood Our Lady, quite as
though nothing had happened, with the infant Christ in her arms and
the tiny lamp burning at her feet.

"Aun' Mary, Aun' Mary," said Lovey, speaking up sharp, "this iddn' no
sense 't all! A person would think time was no objic, the way you
stick there starin', ain' my poor cheeld leary with hunger afore
now--as you, bein' a mother, oft to knaw. Fit an' fetch 'en home to
me quick. Aw, do'ee co', that's a dear soul!"

But Our Lady stood there and made no sign.

"I don't understand 'ee 't all," Lovey groaned. "'Tiddn' the way
I'd behave in your place, and you d'knaw it."

Still Our Lady made no sign.

Lovey grew desperate.

"Aw, very well, then!" she cried. "Try what it feels like without
your liddle Jesus!"

And reaching up a hand, she snatched at and lifted the Holy Child
that fitted into a stone socket on Our Lady's arm. It came away in
her grasp, and she fled, tucking it under her shawl.

All the way home Lovey looked for the earth to gape and swallow her,
or a hand to reach down from heaven and grip her by the hair; and all
the way she seemed to hear Our Lady's feet padding after her in the
darkness. But she never stopped nor stayed until she reached home;
and there, flinging in through the door and slamming to the bolt
behind her, she made one spring for the bed, and slid down in it,
cowering over the small stone image.

_Rat-a-tat! tat!_--someone knocked on the door so that the cottage
shook.

"Knock away!" said Lovey. "Whoever thee be, thee 'rt not my cheeld."

_Rat-a-tat! tat!_

"My cheeld wouldn' be knockin': he's got neither strength nor sproil
for it. An' you may fetch Michael and all his Angels, to tear me in
pieces," said Lovey; "but till I hear my own cheeld creen to me, I'll
keep what I have!"

Thereupon Lovey sat up, listening. For outside she heard a feeble
wail.

She slipped out of bed.