Angela reached for the child—she was calm and self-possessed at last. This was not the first child she had rescued.
"It is—a girl?" she asked, lifting the tiny form.
"Hit's a girl. Give hit a chance."
"I will." Then Angela wrapped the child in the old quilt and turned toward the door.
"Will you wait until I return?" she paused to ask, but Becky, her eyes on that picture of the Good Shepherd, replied:
"No—I don let go!"
With that she passed as noiselessly from the room as if she were but a shadow sinking into the darkness outside.
Angela went upstairs and knocked at Sister Constance's door. Sister Constance was alert at once. Every faculty of hers was trained to respond intelligently to taps on the door in the middle of the night.
"This is—a child—a mountain child," whispered Sister Angela. "It has been left here. Take it into the west wing and tell no one of its presence until we know whether it will be claimed!"
"Very well, Sister." Constance folded the child to her ample breast; the maternal in her gave the training she had received a divine quality. The baby stirred, stretched out its little limbs, and opened its vague, sleep-filled eyes as if at last something worthy of response had appealed to it.