“I will come again in an hour,” he at length said, “and see if there is any change.  I would rather not give her any more medicine for the present.  Let her remain perfectly quiet.”

True to his promise, Doctor R—­entered the room just an hour from the time he left it.  The scene that met his eye moved his heart deeply, all used as he was to the daily exhibition of misery in its many distressing forms.  The child was dead!  He was prepared for that—­but not for the abandoned grief to which the mother gave way.  The chords of feeling had been drawn in her heart too tightly.  Mind and body were both out of tune, and discordant.  In suffering, in abject want and destitution, her heart still clung to her children, and threw around them a sphere of intenser affection, as all that was external grew darker, colder, and more dreary.  They were her jewels, and she could not part with them.  They were hidden away in her heart of hearts so deeply, that not a single one of them could be taken without leaving it lacerated and bleeding.

When the doctor entered, he found her lying upon the bed, with the body of her child hugged tightly to her bosom.  Little Emma had crept away into a corner of the room, and looked frightened.  Henry was crouching in a chair, with the tears running down his cheeks in streams.

“You are too late, doctor,” said the mother, in a tone so calm, so clear, and yet to his ear so thrilling, that he started, and felt a chill pass through his frame.  There was something in the sound of that voice in ill accordance with the scene.

As she spoke, she glanced at the physician with bright, tearless eyes for a moment; and then, turning away her head, she laid her cheek against that of the corpse, and drew the lifeless body with trembling eagerness to her heart.

“This is all vain, my dear madam!” urged Dr. R—­, approaching the bedside, and laying his hand upon her.  “Come!  Be a woman.  To bear is to conquer our fate.  No sorrow of yours can call back the happy spirit of your child.  And, surely, you would not call her back, if you could, to live over the days of anguish and pain that were meted out to her?”

“I cannot give up my child, doctor.  Oh, I cannot give up my child!  It will break my heart!” she replied, her voice rising and trembling more and more at each sentence, until it gave way, and the hot tears came raining over her face, and falling upon the insensible cheek of her child.

“‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,’ Mrs. Gaston.  Can you not look up, even in this sore affliction, and say, ’Blessed be the name of the Lord?’ It is your only hope.  An arm of flesh cannot support you now.  You must look to the Strong for strength.”

As Doctor R—­thus urged her to reason and duty, the tears of the bereaved mother gradually ceased to flow.  She grew calmer, and regained, in some degree, her self-possession.  As she did so, she slowly disengaged her arm from the body of her child, placed its head, as carefully as if it had been asleep, upon the pillow, and then arose, and stood with her hands tightly clasped across her forehead.