Page:Female Prose Writers of America.djvu/393

 lain, when a slight rustling disturbed me. I opened my eyes, and saw my dearest friend, Mary Porter, near me.

“Why have you not been to see me before?” I said, rather reproachfully.

“I have; but when you were asleep. I thought I must see you and the baby, so I stole in at that time, for I knew company would injure you, and I feared we would talk too much. There now, go to sleep again, and I will watch by the cradle—you must, or I shall leave.”

Seeing her resolute, I tried to obey, but I could not refrain from opening my eyes to look at her, it seemed so pleasant to have her near me. She sat in a low rocking-chair by the side of the cradle.

She watched for a while the sleeping babe, and then I saw her stoop and place her ear as if listening to its breathing; then, rising, she knelt over it, and taking one hand, held it for a moment and let it drop, then she did the same with the other. Removing the covering, she felt its little feet, and held them awhile in her hands. I thought for the moment she was rather childish. After again covering the child, she drew the curtains of my own bed close around me, and then, as I thought, removed the cradle farther from my bed, and left the room.

I wondered what this meant, and was about to rise and go to the cradle myself, when the door gently opened, and I distinguished the voices of Mrs. Bagly and Mary, though they spoke in whispers.

“Don’t make such a fuss about nothing, Miss Mary. Ha’n’t I had children? and don’t an old woman like me know more about nursing than such a young thing as yourself?”

“But look, Mrs. Bagly, for yourself,” and she lifted the babe from the cradle.

I did not wait for a reply, but sprang to my feet and took my child. “It’s certainly dead!” I exclaimed, as, with every muscle relaxed, it lay unconscious in my arms.

“Not dead, I trust,” said Mary. “See, its little heart yet beats.”

I tried to waken it, but in vain. It lay like one in deep stupor, and, as I believed, the stupor of death.