Mary Scranton was only nineteen; but she did not want to live,—­not even for her baby’s sake.  All her sunshine and her strength went out of this world with Tom, and she had no energy to care to live without him.  She did not say so to her sister,—­for Miss ’Viny would have scolded her smartly,—­nor did she tell Doctor Parker; but she prayed about it, and kept it in her heart all those silent days that she sat sewing baby-clothes, and looking forward to an hour that should, even through a death-agony, take her to Tom.  She thought the baby would die, too, and then they should all be together;—­for Mary had a positive temperament, without hope, because without imagination; what she had possessed and lost eclipsed with her all uncertainties of the future; and she thought seven times of Tom where she once thought of her child, though she took pains to make its garments ready, and knit its tiny socks, and lay the lumbering old cradle, that she had been rocked in, with soft and warm wrappings, lest, indeed, the child should live longer than its mother.  So she sat in Miss ’Viny’s bed-room in an old rush-bottomed rocking-chair, sewing and sewing, day after day, the persistent will and intent to die working out its own fulfilling, her white lips growing more and more bloodless, her transparent cheek more wan, and the temples, from which her lustreless hair was carelessly knotted away, getting more hollow and clear and sharp-angled.

And now she lay on the bed, one hand under her cheek, the other picking restlessly at the blanket,—­for consciousness was fluttering back.

“Give me the brandy, Aunt Rhody,” said Doctor Parker, softly.

He poured a few drops into the spoon she brought, and held it to Mary’s lips.  The potent fluid stung the nerves into life again, and quickened the flickering circulation; her thin fingers lay quiet, her eyes opened and looked clear and calm at the Doctor.  He tried to rouse her with an interest deeper to most women than their own agony or languor.

“You’ve got a nice little girl, Mary,” said he, cheerfully.

The ghost of a smile lit her face.

“I’m content,” said she, in a low whisper.

Aunt Rhody brought the baby and laid it on its mother’s arm.  The child stirred and cried, but Mary took no notice; her eyes were fixed and glazing.  Suddenly she smiled a brilliant smile, stretched both arms upward, dropping her baby from its place.  Only for one moment that recognizing look defied death and welcomed life; her arms dropped, her jaw fell;—­it was over.

“I guess you’d better take the baby into the kitchen, Miss Loviny,” said Aunt Rhody; “’tisn’t considered lucky to keep ’em round where folks has died.”

“Luck a’n’t anything,” grimly returned Lovina, who had squeezed her tears back, lest the two or three that inclined to fall should spot the baby’s blanket; “but I’m goin’ to take her out into the kitchen, because I calculate to open the winder in here.”