"Thinkin' as how th' child might be sufferin' with the cold, I follered him in, a-plannin' to leave at daylight an' get across the river. I set down on a bench where he pointed me, an' when I got my breath I begun to look around.
"It was a nice place, Norma, with picters round th' walls an' a good fire an' people sittin' round listenin' to a man talkin', an' when he stopped, a lady begun to sing a song about some sheep as were lost.
"Angel here, she had stopped crying soon as she got warm, an' now she set up, peart an' smilin', pleased to death with the singin'. An' when she was done her song, the lady went to talkin', an' right along, Norma, she was talkin' straight at me. It mus' have been th' Lord as tol' her to do it, else how did she know?
"'Rachel,' says she, an' I reckon this Rachel's another poor such a one as me, don't you, Norma?—'Rachel a cryin' for her children an' there wasn't any comfort for her because they weren't there!' That's how she begun. 'There isn't no love,' she said, 'no love on earth like the love a mother has for her child, you might take it away,' she said, 'an' try to fill its place with money an' everything good in life, but you can't make her stop wantin' her child an' thinkin' about it, not if you was to separate them fifty years; or you might try to beat it out of a mother or starve it out of her, but if the mother love had ever been there, it'd be there still.' That's what she said, Norma. An' she s'posed like the child was lost an' she said, 'even if there was a lot of children besides that a one, would she stay at home, contented like, with them as was safe? No,' she said, 'that mother wouldn't, she'd start out and go hunt for the one as was lost,—even to faintin' along the way, till she found the child or give up an' died. That's how the Lord cares for us'—she said, but I didn't hear no more after that, for I jus' set there turned like to stone, goin' over what she said, the darlin' asleep again in my lap. An' seems like I must a set there for hours, Norma, fightin' against the Lord.
"'An' if you as ain't her mother wants her so,' at last, somethin' inside says to me, 'how much more must th' mother what's lost her want her?' and at that, Norma, the Lord won an' I got up an' come back with the child."
CHAPTER X.
THE MAJOR OBEYS ORDERS.
"He's going fast." So the nurse whispered to Miss Stannard, as with Mr. Dilke and Old G. A. R., she came in that December afternoon. As the three neared the little bed, shut off by the screens from the rest of the ward, they found the Angel already there in the arms of a tall, dark gentleman, while by Joey's pillow knelt a slender lady with shining hair and grave, sweet eyes like the Angel's.
The Major tried to smile a welcome. "They've come—ter—carry—Angel home, they have," he whispered, "her dad—an' her—mammy."