"Doesn't it seem queer to you, ma'am, that she doesn't notice baby more? and he growing so smart and cunning! You know how she was just bound up in the child, and couldn't seem to think of anything else?"
"It is because she is still so weak that she cannot yet think connectedly about anything," Ruth replied with a confidence that she was far from feeling. "You noticed, didn't you, that she said he was so full of life it wearied her to look at him?"
But the nurse who had received hospital training, shook her head and whispered again:—
"It isn't right, ma'am, somehow. I'm no croaker but I've seen lots of sick folks and I don't think things are going just right with her. If I were Mr. Burnham, I should want another doctor to see her, or—something."
Then came Erskine, his face troubled.
"Mamma, did you ever see any one get well as slowly as Irene does? It almost seems to me as though she is weaker to-day than she was two weeks ago; and she seems to take less and less notice of Baby. Last night when I heard him laughing, I asked her if she did not want me to bring him for a little good-night visit, and she said: 'No, I don't want him. I've given him up!'"
His voice broke with the last word, but he waited for his mother to say something encouraging; and she had only the merest commonplaces.
"She has been very ill, Erskine, and I suppose we must be patient. She cannot be expected to be interested in anything while she is still so weak."
"Mamma, you don't think—" and then Ruth was glad that the baby cried, and she had to go to him, without waiting to tell what she thought.