"She has been in great danger," he said, when they had concluded, "but that is over now. It was most fortunate that you were aware of the necessity of keeping her warm when perspiration began."
Miriam's eyes glistened. "And if we had not been so?" she asked.
The doctor looked at her with surprise. "What a strange question!..." he said.
"Answer me, I entreat!" she cried.
"Well," he replied, hastily, "the child would certainly, or rather, would probably, have died."
"God be praised!" cried Miriam, adding, as she turned proudly to her companion, "Now will you say that God has cursed me, when He has worked such a miracle for me? It was a miracle that the kind gentlefolks arrived at the tavern at the same time as I—it was a miracle, for otherwise my child would have died!"
The child recovered.
And what did the people of Barnow say?
The conviction that a mother's love is strong enough to conquer ill-will, and bring healing and salvation, would not have made them cease their rancor toward the widow and her child; but this, in their eyes, was a visible miracle wrought by God, and such a miracle was of course more powerful than even a decree of the wonder-working rabbi.