"O, Jesu!"
"And how could you face your other troubles with your heart aye full, and your lap empty?"
"Oh, mother, I consent to anything. Only save my boy."
"That is a good lass. Trust to me! I do stand by, and see clearer than thou."
Unfortunately there was another consent to be gained; the babe's: and he was more refractory than his mother.
"There," said Margaret, trying to affect regret at his misbehaviour; "he loves me too well."
But Catherine was a match for them both. As she came along she had observed a healthy young woman, sitting outside her own door, with an infant hard by. She went and told her the case; and would she nurse the pining child for the nonce, till she had matters ready to wean him?
The young woman consented with a smile, and popped her child into the cradle and came into Margaret's house. She dropped a curtsy, and Catherine put the child into her hands. She examined, and pitied it, and purred over it, and proceeded to nurse it, just as if it had been her own.
Margaret, who had been paralyzed at her assurance, cast a rueful look at Catherine, and burst out crying.
The visitor looked up. "What is to do? Wife, ye told me not the mother was unwilling."