Werneth’s baby.  Don’t ever tell her she was born in jail.  Raise her a good—­good—.’  She had a sort of spasm then, and squeezed the child so tight, it screamed.  In five minutes, she was dead.  Only nineteen years old, and the little one just two years; and not yet weaned!  I don’t know what to do; so I brought you.  If I touch the child, it seems frightened almost to death, but maybe you can coax it away.  Poor little thing!  What a mercy if it could die!”

“Will you let me have the care of it?  Take it, and keep it up in my cell?”

“I shall be only too thankful, if you will lift the load from my shoulders.”

“Tell the steward to bring me a cup of warm, sweetened milk and a cracker.  The poor little lamb must be almost famished.”

Through an open window streamed the radiance of a daffodil sky, flecked with curling plumes of drifting fire, and the glory fell like a benediction on the iron cot, where lay the body of the early dead; a small, slight, blond girl wearing prematurely the crown of maternity, whose thorns had torn and stained the smooth brow of mere childhood.  The half-opened eyes, fixed in their filmy blue glaze, seemed a prayer for the pretty infant, whose head, a glistening tangle of yellow curls, was nestled down against the bare white throat of the rigid mother; while the dimpled hands pulled fretfully at the blood-spattered gown, that was buttoned across the breast.

As clusters of wild snowy violets springing up in the midst of mud and mire, in a noxious swamp, look doubly pure and sweet because of fetid surroundings,—­so this blossom of the slums, this human bud, with petals of innocence folded close in the calyx of babyhood, seemed supremely and pathetically fair, as she stood leaning against the cot, the little rosy feet on tip-toe, pressing toward her mother; tears on the pink velvet of the round cheeks, on the golden lashes beneath the big blue eyes that grew purplish behind the mist.

The Macedonia of suffering humanity lies always within a stone’s throw; and the “cry for help” had found speedy response in more than one benevolent heart.

A gray-haired widow from the “Sheltering Arms,” to which Sister Serena belonged, and a Sister of Charity from the hospital in X—–­, were already ministering tenderly in the crowded ward; and both had essayed to coax away the little figure clutching her mother’s gown; but the flaring white cap of one, and the flapping black drapery of the other, frightened the trembling child.

Into the group stole Beryl; followed closely by the yellow cat, which had become her shadow.  Kneeling beside the baby, she kissed it softly, took one of the hands, patted her own cheek with it, and lifted the cat to the mattress, where it began to purr.  The silky shock of yellow curls was lifted, the wide eyes stared wonderingly first at Beryl’s face bending near, then at the cat; and by degrees, the lovely waif suffered an arm to draw her farther and farther, while her rose-red mouth parted in a smile, that showed six little teeth, and with one hand fastened in the cat’s fur, she was finally lifted and borne away; Beryl’s soft cheek nestled against hers, the bronzed head bent down to the yellow ringlets; one arm holding the baby and the cat, while the other white hand closed warmly over the child’s bare, cold, dimpled feet.