He kept his eyes fastened upon me, lost in reflection. My words seemed to have struck him. Then, telling me it was a fine morning, and that I must come on deck and get all the air and sunshine possible, he went away. I took up a book, but I could not fix my attention. I was able to read--that is to say, the printed characters were familiar to me, and the words intelligible--but I could not keep my mind fastened to the page. Growing weary of aimlessly sitting or wandering about in my berth, I opened the door and peeped out. As I did so I heard the fat, chuckling laugh of a baby tickled or amused. A young woman sat at the table that was nearest to my cabin, and in front of her, on the table, she held a baby who shook and crowed with laughter as she made faces at it. There was nobody else to be seen. At the forward end, all about the steps was a haze of sunshine, floating through the open hatch there from the front windows of the saloon; otherwise the atmosphere was somewhat gloomy. I stepped out of my berth and approached the young woman in order to look at the child. She turned her head, and, seeing me, grew grave, and stared, whilst the baby instantly ceased to laugh, and rounded its mouth and eyes at me. ‘That is a dear little child,’ said I. ‘What a sweet rippling laugh it has? Is it a boy or girl?’ ‘A girl,’ answered the young woman, with a little suggestion of recoil in her posture, as though I was an object she could not at once make sure of. ‘May I kiss her?’ She held the baby up, and I kissed its cheek. She was a golden-haired child of seven or eight months, with large dark eyes. She did not cry when I kissed her. ‘She is a fine child--a beautiful child!’ said I. ‘Are you the mother?’ ‘No, I am the sister of the mother,’ answered the young woman, beginning to speak as though her doubts of me were leaving her. ‘Aren’t you the lady the sailors rescued yesterday?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘How glad I am you were saved!’ She had a bonnie face, and I looked at her and smiled, and said, ‘May I nurse baby for a minute?’ She put the child into my arms. I kissed it again, and the little creature stared at me, but did not cry. ‘You nurse her nicely,’ said the young woman. ‘How quickly a baby seems to know an experienced hand! I cannot get the knack of holding her comfortably.’ At these words or at that moment I was seized with an indescribable feeling--a sightless yearning, a blind craving, a sense of hopeless loneliness, that, as though it had been some exquisite pang of the heart, caught my breath and clouded my vision, and the blood left my face, and every limb thrilled as though an electric current were pouring through me. The baby set up a cry, and the woman, with fear in her countenance, snatched it out of my arms. ‘Oh, my God! what is this?’ I exclaimed, bringing my hands to my breast. ‘Oh, my God! what is this? I have lost--I have lost--oh! what was it that came and went?’