"What is it?" she turned a steady glance toward the bed. She did not intend that Joyce should be exacting. Women were apt to be unless the nurse was rigid. "Do you want anything?"
"Oh! Isa is that—my baby?" There was such a thrill in the voice that Isa was at once convinced that Joyce was delirious.
She was going to have her hands full. A mere baby, to Isa, was no cause for that tone, and the glorified look.
"I guess there ain't any one else going to put in a claim for him," she replied with a vague sense of humorously calming the patient.
"Him!" Joyce's tears again overflowed. "Did you say 'him' Isa?"
"There, there! do be still now, Joyce, and take a nap. You won't have any too much time for lazing. You better make the most of it."
"It's a boy. Oh! It seems too, too heavenly. My little boy! Isa, is—is—he beautiful?"
And now no doubts remained in Isa's mind. She must pacify this very trying case.
"'Bout as beautiful as they make 'em," she said slowly, and tried to remember what was given to patients when they became unmanageable.
"Does—does he look—like—" the words came pantingly—"like the picture in the other room?"