Tears poured down from the mother's eyes. "Oh, baby, baby, our darling baby is gone! He was took with the croup yesterday morning, and he just went off in the evening. There was too many of you, and now he's gone!" A sad silence fell upon the room. Thomas Mitchell moaned in his sleep, as if his dreams were painful. Outside in the street there was a sound of angry voices--two women quarrelling. Mrs. Webster had once had a baby of her own; it had died. She felt, she knew, all that Mrs. Mitchell was feeling now. The bits of black on which the mother was at work were poor and skimpy, but they betokened a real sorrow. And though Mrs. Mitchell knew that the "home for little children" was far, far better for them than the busy, hard world, yet she could not bring her heart to be thankful that baby was taken; all that she could say was, "Thy will be done!" In the mortuary belonging to the church lay the little, thin, pale body of baby Thomas Mitchell. Life, though short, had been very hard for him, and he had gone out of it at the first call from his Father in heaven--at the first sound of that voice which is sweeter and more drawing than the voice of a mother. Other children had gone before him; but because he was the baby his loss was more acutely felt than that of the others had been. Juliet sat and thought of the many times she had bumped his tender head against the wall, and how often she had let him slip off her lap, or left him lying in the rain or in the fierce sunshine. And now the darling baby had died, and she away from home! She had not watched his last sigh, she had not given him one farewell kiss! Already he was in his tiny coffin, and she would never in this life see him again, save in those blessed dreams which now and then restore to us for a time our loved and lost ones. Juliet could not have explained--perhaps it could not be explained--how it was that the death of baby during her absence seemed to be connected with her bad conduct. It is certain that this sudden shock affected her greatly. It was, as it were, a break in her life; her old ill-tempered, unteachable childhood went into the past, and a gentle womanhood sprang up in the future. For the present there was a sad, humble, penitent girl. When she began once more to know what was going on in that room, she found that Mrs. Webster was telling Mrs. Mitchell, in very mild terms, of the reasons why Juliet was sent home. "I am quite a stranger," said the lady, "and I feel myself an intruder in your time of sorrow. You have my deepest sympathy. And I trust that Juliet will henceforth do better. She has had some severe lessons. Do you think your husband would be stronger if he lived in the country?" "Yes, ma'am; the doctor at the dispensary says that country air would do wonders for him. But then he can't leave his work; it is no use to live in the country and have a good appetite if you have no means of getting victuals for your appetite."