“‘Can this be true?’ says one of the gintlemen to another.
“‘True as the gospel,’ says I, spakin’ up boldly, ‘ye’ve been praisen that hathen of a nurse for a baby that didn’t belong til ye, and this poor thing has been starved down to nothin’.’
“‘Well,’ says the gintleman, for he was a rale gintleman, says he, ‘I’ll send an officer for this woman, and she shall never, to her dying day, have another child from this department. But what can we do wid the poor infant? We must send for a nurse that can be trusted at once.’
“Thin my heart ris into my mouth, and I hugged the baby to me, and says I, wid the tears in my eyes, says I, ‘Let me have the child to nurse, I’ll be a mother til it, an’ more too, if that’ll satisfy ye.’
“Well, the long and short of it was, they thanked me kindly for comin’, and give me the baby, wid a dollar a week for takin’ care of it. So when the nurse came home, expectin’ to find it dead in its basket, there was nothin’ for her but a bundle of rags, and a perlice officer to take her down to the Park.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Catharine, with a burst of gratitude, kissing the child again and again. “It was a brave act, Mrs. Dillon, and the child will live to bless you for it as—as I do.”
“In course he will,” replied Mary Margaret, “for it’s just a miracle the saints might wonder at that he lived at all. At first, ye see, considerin’ his starvin’ condition, I just give me own little felly the could shoulder, and turned him over to the tin porriger; but he got on well enough, niver fear; and the little stranger begun to thrive as ye niver seen in yer born days.”
“He has indeed found a kind mother,” said Catharine, thoughtfully. “But how long will they let you keep him?”
“Well, it’s two years that they put the babies to nurse. I’m tould,” answered Mary, reluctantly.
“And after that?”