Mamma's arms encircled and upheld the little form, the chubby hands were meekly folded, and the soft cheek rested against hers, while the few words of prayer faltered on the baby tongue.
Then, the posture changed to a more restful one, the sweet voice still full of tears, and often trembling with emotion, sang the little one to sleep.
Laying her gently in her crib, Elsie knelt beside it, sending up a petition with strong crying and tears; not that the young life might be spared, unless the will of God were so, but that she might be enabled to say, with all her heart, "Thy will be done."
Ere she had finished, her husband knelt beside her asking the same for her and himself.
They rose up together, and folded to his heart, she wept out her sorrow upon his breast.
"You are very weary, little wife," he said tenderly, passing his hand caressingly over her hair and pressing his lips again and again to the heated brow.
"It is rest to lay my head here," she whispered.
"But you must not stand;" and sitting down he drew her to the sofa, still keeping his arm about her waist. "Bear up, dear wife," he said, "we will hope our precious darling is not very ill."
She told him of the child's words, and the sad foreboding that had entered her own heart.
"While there is life there is hope, dearest," he said, with assumed cheerfulness. "Let us not borrow trouble. Does He not say to us, as to the disciples of old, 'It is I, be not afraid'?"