But when they brought Agnes to nurse her, and told her of the wonderful good fortune that always attended the heroic girl, she seemed to take fresh spirit and gain strength.
As yet the baby was unscathed by the dreadful plague, And it would have been sent away, could they have got any person to take it. That, however, was impossible.
"Never mind, Mrs. Green, do not let that subject worry you any more. I will take good care of the baby. They shall not take it away from you," said Agnes, hugging the infant to her.
"O, God bless you! God bless you, always," exclaimed the poor mother, thrilled with the deepest gratitude. "My darling! my baby! my baby!"
True to her word, Agnes never neglected the little thing, though sometimes, between it and her patients, she was nearly beside herself. Reader, if you are a woman, and have ever had even an ordinary sickness in your household, you can easily comprehend the position in which Agnes was placed with her three patients to nurse, and an infant to care for at the same time. Yet she never murmured, never became impatient.
But, in the mysterious workings of Providence, it was destined that the good, the beautiful, the angelic girl should not be long of this world.
"De good Lord ob hebben has tuk her away to her reward!" wept an old negress, who had been saved by the kind and tender care of Agnes, a short time before, and who had waited on her in her dying moments, and closed her eyes when all was over.
This poor old creature was only too happy when they gave her permission to prepare the inanimate form of her late benefactress for the grave. When she had done all, she did not know what to do for some ornament, till at last a brilliant thought came across her mind, and she adopted it.
Wherever Agnes used to go she always carried a small basket containing little useful articles, together with a pocket Bible, out of which she was ever reading some portion of God's holy word, appropriate to the mental condition of the patients she might be nursing. Out of this basket old Rachel took the pocket Bible, and, with the tears coursing down her wrinkled features, she placed the sacred book in the clasped hand of the quiet sleeper, and laid both gently back on the still pure bosom.
"O, honey," she groaned, "ef ye could on'y open dem hebbenly eyes ob yourn, an' see dat book dar, wot you used to lub so well, how you would bress dis poor ole niggah fur puttin' it in dat pooty white hand ob yourn."