“Faix, but it’s goodness all over to see you lying there with the poor orphan in your arms, motherly as can be, though ye do look like a child yerself,” she said, seating herself at the foot of her young neighbor’s bed; “and it’s thriving so, wouldn’t it be a blessed sight to the mother, who is gone. Poor young mother, if she could only look upon us now and see the child cuddling down in the bed like a birdie in its nest?”
The young woman smiled; she was very weak and pallid yet, but the dimples would come around her mouth whenever she looked down upon the baby.
“Ye’re mighty fond of it, I can see that with half an eye,” said Margaret, tossing up her own plump boy with both hands; “but here’s a shaver that will weigh down two of him, if he isn’t so white and purty. Did ye ever see a crathur thrive like this little felly. Kiss him now, plump on the mouth, he’s nate as a pink all over; and I’m going home for good the morning.”
“Going home!” exclaimed her friend, starting up and holding out her arms for the child. “Oh! what shall I do after that; it will be terrible staying here all alone!”
“True, for ye; but I’ll be coming and going, never fear. The old man is lonesome like, and the childer trouble him, so he wants me to the fore.”
“Oh, if I were only well enough to go out,” sighed the young creature, whose delicate arms had already drooped under the weight of Mrs. Dillon’s baby; “but where could I go—where could I go?”
“Now, whist a bit,” answered Mary Margaret, in full sympathy. “When the time comes, look to the blessed Saviour; but first, ye know, find out the shanty of Margaret Dillon; it’s on the rocks above Fortieth Street. Ye’ll know it by a black goat that browses there; to say nothing of two geese and a duck that paddles in the bit of a pond close by; whenever it is, ye’ll be welcome as the spring-flowers.”
By this time the young woman was crying, and Margaret felt sympathetic tears stealing into her eyes.
“Ye’ll be sure to come?”
“Yes; you have been so good to me, Mrs. Dillon, and I don’t know that I have another friend in the world.”