She caught the woman by the hand, and looked up in her face with such an expression of longing intense desire, that, harsh as she was, it melted her stony heart; and, going to a closet, she returned with the babe in her arms.  It was dressed in its little cap, and long white night-gown—­a cold image of purity and perfect peace.

“Oh, mine own! mine own!” wailed the young mother, pressing the cold form against her breast, as she rocked to and fro on the pillow.  “My blessed innocent boy!  You have left me for ever, and ever, and ever.  My child! my infant love!  I have wept for you—­prayed for you—­while yet unborn, have blessed you.  Your smiles would have healed up the deep wounds of my broken heart.  Together we would have wandered to some distant land, where reproaches, and curses, and blows, would never have found us; and we would have been happy in each’s other’s love—­so happy!  Ah, my murdered child!  I call upon you, but you cannot hear me!  I weep for you, but you are unconscious of my grief.  Ah, woe is me!  What shall I do, a-wanting thee?  My heart is empty; the world is empty.  Its promises are false—­its love departed.  My child is dead, and I am alone—­alone—­alone.”

“Come, give me the babe, Mary!  I hear your brother’s step upon the stair.”

“You shall not have it!” cried the girl, starting up in the bed, her eyes flashing fire.  “Hush! your loud voice will waken him.  He is mine.  God gave him to me; and you shall not tear him from me.  No other hand shall feed and rock him to sleep but mine.

    “Lullaby, baby! no danger shall come,
      My breast is thy pillow, my heart is thy home;
    That poor heart may break, but it ever shall be
      True, true to thy father, dear baby, and thee!

    “Weep, mother, weep, thy loved infant is sleeping
      A sleep which no storms of the world can awaken;
    Ah, what avails all thy passionate weeping,
      The depths of that love which no sorrow has shaken?

    “All useless and lost in my desolate sadness,
      No sunbeam of hope scatters light through the gloom;
    Instead of the voice of rejoicing and gladness,
      I hear the wind wave the rank grass on thy tomb.”

Partly moaning, and partly singing, the poor creature, exhausted by a night of severe pain, and still greater mental anxiety, dropped off into a broken slumber, with the dead infant closely pressed to her bosom.

“Well, there they lie together:  the dead and the living,” said Mrs. Strawberry. “’Tis a piteous sight.  I wish they were both bound to the one place.  We’ll have no good of this love-sick girl; and I have some fears myself of her brutal brother and the father of the brat.  I hear his voice:  they are home.  Well, they may just step up, and look at their work.  If this is not murder, I wonder what is?”

With a feeling of more humanity than Mrs. Strawberry was ever known to display, she arranged the coarse pillow that supported Mary’s head, and softly closing the door, descended the step-ladder that led to the kitchen; here she found Godfrey and Mathews in close conversation, the latter laughing immoderately.