For two or three days after this night Lucy was quite ill again. Her mind seemed wandering all along the path of her former life, but always the all over-shadowing subject in all the wanderings of her thoughts was, “My baby,” “My baby.” Sometimes she called for Jack saying, “Come Jack, and see my baby,” and then for her uncle, laughing in her sleep and saying “See, Uncle John, I’ve brought into the world a boy, my baby.” When the fever again abated and once more she became conscious her first words were “My baby, bring it now.” For several days the mental resources of the nurse, Doctor and Mrs. Church were taxed to their utmost in finding excuses for the absence of the baby. He was not well. He was asleep, she was not well enough and many other things they told her as reasons for not bringing her baby to her. But, Oh! the piteous pleading in her voice and eyes, as with quivering lips and fluttering hands extended toward them she would beg, “Please bring my baby to me. Every mother wishes to see her baby, to press it to her breast, to feel its breath upon her cheek, to hold it to her heart; Oh! Please bring my darling to me.” Poor Mrs. Church, no martyr ever suffered more than did that tender-hearted woman, who loved Lucy with a mother’s heart. The Doctor, when he had reassured and quieted, for a little while, his patient, would leave the room and standing in the hall would wring his hands and groan, as if in mortal agony. One night when Lucy seemed more restful than usual, and was slumbering, worn out by emotion and watching, the Doctor, lying on a couch in the hall, fell fast asleep. The nurse, seeing all about her resting, her charge peacefully and regularly, first became drowsy, nodded and then slept. The gold-brown head was raised cautiously from its pillows, the hazel eyes wide opened looked about, and seeing that the nurse was sleeping and that no one was looking, then two little white feet slipped stealthily from beneath the coverlet, the slim figure rose, left the bed and glided along the well remembered passage that led from her chamber to that bower of beauty made for her baby. As she, weak and trembling, stole along, she smiled and whispered to herself: “I will see my baby! I will hold him in my arms, I am his own mother.” In the room, that with loving, hopeful hands she had helped to decorate, the faintest flame gave dim, uncertain light, yet quick she reached the silver shell-like crib and feeling found no baby there. Hearing a steady, loud breathing of some one asleep and seeing the indistinct outline of a bed in one corner of the room, she softly crept to its side and feeling gently with her soft hands found a tiny figure reposing beside the snoring sleeper. To gather the baby to the warm breast wherein her longing, loving heart was beating wildly was the work of only an instant.