The nurse held out her arms for it, and the poor weak mother, after a glance at her kind face, yielded it to her, tottering, however, after her as quickly as she could.
"Give her two or three spoonfuls of beef-tea at once, and get her to bed, and in about twenty minutes I will call in and see how she is."
With an unspoken explanation, which the nurse seemed to comprehend, he turned away to visit another patient near.
The nurse helped the sick woman into the back room, and proceeded to lay the now sleeping babe upon one of the two beds, in the second of which was an elderly woman who was asleep. Everything in the room was the picture of cleanliness; there was a curtain which could be drawn from side to side, and the nurse now noiselessly drew this on its easy rings, and then went into her own room to place a little saucepan of beef-tea on the fire.
Meanwhile the poor woman had sunk on a chair exhausted; the little spark of life which had carried her thus far seemed failing.
"I'll undress you, my dear," said the nurse kindly; "take no trouble, I'll do everything; just sit still, you're too weak to help yourself."
"Indeed I am," moaned the sick woman. "No one knows what I have gone through the last week or two with my poor baby; at last—"
"There, don't talk," said the nurse, noticing the pallor which overspread her face at these words, "you shall tell me everything when you are nicely in bed."
Meanwhile she had been swiftly and tenderly unfastening the poor shabby clothes, and soon her patient was resting in the soft bed, with clean and fresh linen round her, and her own old garments noiselessly removed to the other room, to be seen to and hung up presently.
The nurse returned with the beef-tea, and proceeded to feed her with it spoonful by spoonful.