“Whose—whose child is that?” she inquired, breathlessly; “surely I heard two voices!”
“In course ye did, and why not?” said Margaret, with a baby under one arm, while she plunged about among the blankets for the little creature next the wall. “Come out here, little felly, and show yer blue eyes to the lady. Isn’t he a beauty, out and out?”
Catharine held out her arms for the child, who turned his great blue eyes wonderingly upon the lamp, while the poor young creature was striving to fix them on herself, for her very soul yearned toward the little creature. But the child was obstinate, and gave itself up to admiration of the lamp, while she sat gazing on it through a mist of tears, so sadly, wrapped in fond sorrow, that you would have wept at the very attitude.
“Whose—whose is it?” she asked; “both cannot be yours.”
“Ye’re right in that entirely,” answered Margaret, pouring some milk into the tin cup she had been drinking from and placing it on the embers in the furnace. “It’s the nurse maid ye have.”
“And who is its mother?” faltered Catharine, pressing the child fondly to her bosom, and laying her pale cheek to its warm little face.
“Ye remember the poor young crathur that had the cot next to yours, and the baby they took away from yez?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
“She died, poor, misfortunate soul! and only that I wouldn’t stand by and see the baby starve to death by her side, it might have been buried on her bosom. I had a fight wid the nurse, bad luck to her! but the doctor stood by me, and so the little thing got a fair start in the world before he came to you. Faix! but she’s a wicked crathur, that nurse.”
“I believe she was—I am sure of it!” answered Catharine, in a mournful undertone. “Do you know I sometimes think that my own poor little baby might have lived, if she had taken care of it? Such a large, beautiful—ah, if it had but lived—if it had but lived, nothing could make me quite miserable! Mrs. Dillon, poor, helpless, and deserted as I am, I would give the whole world, if it were mine, only to hold his child in my arms as I do this poor, little motherless baby. He has left me—he has left me, but I know that I should worship his child.”