then died away
into silence. Someone on the other side of the gate was in distress or
pain, and it was clearly her duty to enquire into the cause. With a
beating heart she undid the fastening and peeped out. Crouched down on
the step, as if she could drag herself no farther, was a Chinese woman
bearing a baby fastened on to her back. She was desperately wounded,
the blood still flowed from a gash on her head, and stains on the
roadside marked the track along which she must have crawled in her
agony to reach the friendly shelter of the wooden archway. Life was
almost spent, but with an effort of desperation she managed to raise
herself into a kneeling posture, and, clasping her hands together,
cried out in Chinese: "Mercy! Mercy! The child!" and, with a last
glance of supplicating appeal, fell across the threshold at the feet
of the trembling nurse. Help was summoned at once, and she was carried
into the hospital; but she was already past all human aid. She had
accomplished her errand with the last spark of her dying strength, and
had gone out into the light beyond the sunset.

Sister Grace took the baby from her and laid the little creature
gently on the bed, unfolding some of the curious Chinese clothing in
which it was closely wrapped. She had unloosed the wadded coat, and
now pulled off the queer double-peaked crimson cap, disclosing as she
did so, not the expected shaved head, with its fringe of coarse black
hair, but a crop of short, tight, flaxen curls, like rings of floss
silk, falling round a pair of flushed cheeks as pink as appleblossom.

She uttered a cry that drew both doctor and nurses to her side. "Look!
Look!" she exclaimed, "the child is white!"

Where the poor baby had come from or to whom it belonged no one knew.
It was warm and unhurt, though in such a deep sleep that it had
evidently been drugged to prevent it from crying. Beyond a small
woollen vest it was dressed in Chinese clothes, no doubt with the
intention of passing it off as a native, and it wore a carved Chinese
charm tied round its neck. It was a little girl of apparently about a
year old, so round and pretty and dimpled that, when at last, after
many hours, she opened her big blue eyes, she won all hearts in the
hospital at once.

It was impossible to institute any enquiries regarding her during the
troublous time which followed. The Mission, indeed, escaped attack,
but it was many months before communication with the outside world wa