“What is the matter here?” inquired the doctor; “why don’t the woman take care of her child? This noise will play the mischief with my patients. Wake her up, nurse, and have the little fellow silenced.” “But I can’t; she won’t wake up,” said Jane desperately. “Won’t wake up; why?” said the doctor, stepping close to Mrs. Dillon’s cot. “Dear me, what is this? Has she taken anything?” “Yes,” said Jane Kelly, with prompt falsehood, “brandy. She had visitors yesterday. I found the bottle under her bed empty.” “Brandy, and this comes of it. There must be bad management here, Jane Kelly.” Jane made no answer, but busied herself in arranging the room. CHAPTER X. THE VELVET PRAYER-BOOK AND ITS CONTENTS. After the doctor had gone, Jane Kelly was putting fresh straw into the bed on which that young mother had died only a few hours before. She found a prayer-book bound in purple velvet, such as fanciful young girls carry to church, hid away in the loose straw she was throwing out. Jane instantly seized upon the book and began searching it leaf by leaf, in hopes of finding some secret hoard of money concealed in its pages. She was disappointed in this, but she found a sealed letter which keenly excited her curiosity, for it was directed to a name that she recognized. A slip of paper was folded around this letter, on which was written a wild and blotted request that it should be forwarded at once, whatever the writer’s fate may be. The name on this slip of paper was that which had been placed on the wooden tablet at the head of that young mother’s cot. More than this, while searching further among the blank leaves, the woman found a name written that startled her a little, and suggested a train of thought which held her inactive for some minutes. This name belonged to a lady, well known and of high standing in all the charitable circles of the city. Jane Kelly had seen it many a time, heading committees for calico balls, charity concerts, and all those religious and philanthropic devices by which money is lured into mercenary or merciful channels, as the case may be, by a union of fashion and philanthropy. Jane Kelly found this lady’s name in a blank leaf of the prayer-book, which from its date must have been a Christmas present. Mrs. Cordelia Judson to ——. The name written here was not that printed on the wooden tablet, but that did not disturb the train of Kelly’s conjectures; nothing was more likely than that the real name should be in the book, and a false one given to the tablet. These shrewd calculations occupied the woman all the time she was filling the bed. When the last wisp of straw was crowded into the tick, she sat down upon it, carefully opened the imperfectly sealed letter, and read it from beginning to end. When she folded it again, it was slowly, and that hard face had softened with a touch of womanly pity.