“And I am very glad you thought to fetch her, Dick,” added the honest old general.
Dick explained that such thoughtfulness was no merit of his; that this woman had attended the young wife down from Washington, and had been left temporarily at Saulsburg, and had availed herself of his escort to come on to the hall.
So mammy was taken up to her patient, whom she found much too ill to be scolded for her imprudence.
In fact Drusilla was, as they said, almost at the point of death. Her life hung upon the slenderest thread for five days, at the end of which she became the mother of a beautiful boy.
As her illness before his birth had been severe and dangerous, so her convalescence afterwards was slow and precarious. For many more days she lay in a mental and physical prostration, so profound that she was incapable of noticing her child, and even of realizing its existence. But her youth and her good constitution were very much in her favor.
Gradually, very gradually, she came out of this depressed state.
The first signs of reviving life she gave was the interest she showed in her babe.
Before she had strength to speak above her breath, or sense to connect a sentence properly, she would mutely insist upon having him laid on her arm and next her bosom; and then with a serene smile she would sink into a tranquil sleep.
And then, lest even the light weight of the infant should be too much for her feeble strength, the nurse would steal the sleeping child from the sleeping mother and lay him in the pretty berceaunette that had been purchased and decorated for him by Anna.
As the weeks went on, the young mother continued to revive; and her interest in her infant boy became a passionate love, that grew with her growing strength.