“Holy mother! I shall have to light the candle, after all. Waste, waste, nothing but waste. Stand still while I get at a coal of fire. Don’t move, or you might tread on the cat, and she won’t like it.”
Here the woman went rattling among some loose articles of crockery on the table, and falling upon her knees before the fireplace, ignited a tallow candle with much puffing and blowing. Then she stood up, held the candle over her head, and searched her visitor from head to foot.
“There, there, sit down,” cried the woman, sweeping a lean, gray cat from the rush-bottom of an old chair with one broken arm, and presenting it to her guest in a quick, eager way.
“Any news?—anything to tell? Why should you come so late? Why don’t you speak?”
“Yes, I’ve got news. It’s all over——”
“What? Dead? Really dead? But which of ’em? Not both? That would be too good luck! Not both, eh?”
“No, madame, that isn’t just true yet. But to-morrow will tell the story. If it hadn’t been for a woman in the ward, who would give the medicine after I’d forgot it agin and agin, you might have saved the expense of two graves. Something interesting, you know, in burying a baby on its mother’s bosom.
“‘We laid you down to sleep, Mary,
With your baby on your breast.’
“Sweet song, isn’t it, ma’am? that is what I call touching.”