Maggie had now found an old bottle to stick her candle into.
“I am Miss Polly’s little kitchen-maid, Maggie Ricketts,” she replied. “I ain’t a ghost, and I haven’t nothing to say to the wife of Micah Jones. As to the baby, let me look at it. You’re a very bad young lady, Miss Flower, but I has come to fetch away the baby, ef you please, so let me look at it this minute. Oh, my, how my legs do ache; that moor is heavy walking! Give me the baby, please, Miss Flower. It ain’t your baby, it’s Miss Polly’s.”
“So, you’re Maggie?” said Flower. There was a queer shake in her voice. “It was about you I was so angry. Yes, you may look at the baby; take it and look at it, but I don’t want to see it, not if it’s dead.”
Maggie instantly lifted the little white bundle into her arms, removed a portion of the shawl, and pressed her cheek against the cheek of the baby.
The little white cheek was cold, but not deadly cold, and some faint, faint breath still came from the slightly parted lips.
When Maggie had anything to do, no one could be less nervous and more practical.
“The baby ain’t dead at all,” she explained. “She’s took with a chill, and she’s very bad, but she ain’t dead. Mother has had heaps of babies, and I know what to do. Little Miss Pearl must have a hot bath this minute.”
“Oh, Maggie,” said Flower. “Oh, Maggie, Maggie!”
Her frozen indifference, her apathy, had departed. She rose from her recumbent position, pushed back her hair and stood beside the other young girl, with eyes that glowed, and yet brimmed over with tears.
“Oh, what a load you have taken off my heart!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a darling you are! Kiss me, Maggie, kiss me, dear, dear Maggie.”