“I remember that I made no effort to hide my disgrace; I did not pretend to be married or to be a widow, and the mistress of the house was not unkind to me.  She liked me all the better for telling the truth.  I say no word to you of my mental anguish—­no words can describe it, but I loved the little one.  She was only three weeks old when a letter was forwarded to me at the address I had given in London, saying that my grandmother was ill and wished me to go home at once.  What was I to do with the baby?  I can remember how the great drops of anguish stood on my face, how my hands trembled, how my very heart went cold with dread.

“The newspapers which I took daily, to read the advertisements for governesses, lay upon the table, and my eyes were caught by an advertisement from some woman living at Brighton, who undertook the bringing up of children.  I resolved to go down that very day.  I said nothing to my landlady of my intention.  I merely told her that I was going to place the little one in very good hands, and that I would return for my luggage.

“I meant—­so truly as Heaven hears me speak—­I meant to do right by the little child.  I meant to work hard to keep her in a nice home.  Oh, I meant well!

“I was ashamed to go out in the streets with a little baby in my arms.

“‘What shall I do if it cries?’ I asked the kindly landlady.  ’You can prevent it from crying,’ she said; ‘give it some cordial.’  ’What cordial?’ I asked, and she told me.  ‘Will it hurt the little one?’ I asked again, and she laughed.

“‘No,’ she replied, ’certainly not.  Half the mothers in London give it to their children.  It sends them into a sound sleep, and they wake up none the worse for it.  If you give the baby just a little it will sleep all the way to Brighton, and you will have no trouble.’  I must say this much for myself, that I knew nothing whatever of children, that is, of such little children.  I had never been where there was a baby so little as my own.

“I bought the cordial, and just before I started gave the baby some.  I thought that I was very careful.  I meant to be so.  I would not for the whole world have given my baby one half-drop too much.

“It soon slept a calm, placid sleep, and I noticed that the little face grew paler.  ‘Your baby is dying,’ said a woman, who was traveling in the third-class carriage with me.  ‘It is dying, I am sure.’  I laughed and cried; it was so utterly impossible, I thought; it was well and smiling only one hour ago.  I never remembered the cordial.  Afterwards, when I came to make inquiries, I found that I had given her too much.  I need not linger on details.

“You see, that if my little one died by my fault, it was most unconscious on my part; it was most innocently, most ignorantly done.  I make no excuse.  I tell you the plain truth as it stands.  I caused my baby’s death, but it was most innocently done; I would have given my own life to have brought hers back.  You, my judge, can you imagine any fate more terrible than standing quite alone on the Brighton platform with a dead child in my arms?