"Indeed you might. There is only blessedness with Jesus, and if you will not believe He died for your sins, if you will not look to Him to save you, you can never go to be with Him, where I hope your baby will go."
The woman still clasped her child, but did not answer. She was thinking deeply, with what little power of thought she had left.
"When He was on earth," resumed the doctor, "He took such little babies as yours up in His arms, and said He should like to have them with Him in heaven."
"Did He?" said the poor woman. "Was He ever fond of little babies?"
"He was indeed, and He loves you and your baby so much that He died to save you."
"It was kind of Him," she said dreamily; "let me rest now."
She sank down again, and the exhausted frame was once more at rest in profound slumber, nor did she even wake when her baby stirred; but the nurse gently withdrew the tiny little thing from her arms, and took it into her own room, where she fed it, and washed it, and made it more comfortable than its poor sick and poverty-stricken mother had been able to do for many a long day.
Meanwhile Dr. Arundel had left, promising to return by-and-by.
The nurse then took the babe back, laid it by the side of its sleeping mother, and afterwards went to her other patient, and told her a little of what she had gathered of the young woman's history.
She had explained to Dr. Arundel in the cab that her husband had died two or three months ago, and that ever since she had been struggling with poverty and ill health, until at length she had been forced to abandon what little work she could find, and begin the downward road of selling her things one by one to obtain food. At last illness and starvation had deprived her of all hope, and she had given herself up to utter despair.