“Sure I’m better off than that poor crathur yonder—go an’ shpake to her, sor.”
The woman he pointed out was sitting alone in her seat. She was young and good looking, but her face was drawn and pinched with some sudden and bitter woe. Her baby was wrapped in a dark shawl, lying very still, and she rocked it gently in her arms, and talked to it in cooing voice.
“Is your baby sick?”
“No sir.”
“It is sleeping then?”
“Yes sir, my baby is sleeping.”
A little girl who was on her knees beside the woman lifted the shawl from the sleeper’s face. The baby was dead! The mother looked up with
A QUICK SHUDDER OF FEAR,
and with a world of pity in her startled eyes.
“Oh, sir, don’t tell them, they would take my baby away, and he would never see it.”