She attempted to take the sleeping babe from the bed; but the young creature started up like a lioness, her face flushing hotly and her eyes dilating. “What are you after—not my child! go away! go away!” “Come, come, no nonsense. This woman has got her order,” said Jane Kelly; “give up the child and let’s hear no more of this. She is a first-class nurse and will be a mother to it.” “Mother and father both,” sniffed the woman; but the young patient grew more and more frightened. Seeing no reason for hope in the woman, she turned to the doctor. “Oh, doctor, don’t, don’t! it will kill me to part with him.” Those great blue eyes deepened into the purple of a violet with sharp apprehension, and she clung to the child on her bosom in passionate resistance. “It does not hurt me,” she pleaded; “why, any one can tell you how strong I am. Only yesterday I sat up in the bed half an hour. He’s doing so nicely. Ask Mrs. Dillon, who loves him almost as much as I do; poor little creature, I am sure his mother would ask it, if she only knew.” “But the woman has her order from headquarters. She’s an experienced nurse, and the child will be better off with her,” said the young man, who had been impressed with the opinion that the young woman must be suffering from her care of the babe; for Jane Kelly was considered as authority in these things by the students, and usually managed to have her own way. “You see how the least thing excites her,” she whispered. The young man nodded his head, and began to reason with his patient. “You are not strong enough.” “Yes I am, very, very strong.” “But you will go away soon, and then he must be given up.” The poor thing fell back upon her pillow, broken-hearted. This was the truth; what could she do with the child, even if it was permitted her to have it—she, who had no shelter for her own head. “Ah, sir, let me keep it a little while longer; see what a comfort he is to me. I can almost make him smile.” She touched the infant’s cheek with the tip of her finger, and made a piteous noise with her quivering mouth, at which the child began to cry,—and so, in fact, did Mary Margaret. “He does almost laugh, sometimes,” pleaded the patient, sadly disappointed, and looking up with pathetic earnestness. “It’s because you are all looking at him. Please go away, I am quite sure that worn—that lady, will make him cry harder. He seems to know what she wants, poor little fellow.” “But the authorities have decided he must be put out to nurse.” “But not yet, oh! not yet; besides—” She lifted up her hand, with a gesture that induced the doctor to stoop. “Besides, she does not look kind,” she whispered, trembling with fear lest the woman might understand her. “Indeed; indeed, she does not!”