“What have ye there, Misses Kelly, saving yer prisence?” inquired Mary Margaret, holding her baby poised in mid-air, and turning her kindly eyes upon the nurse. “It isn’t dead, sure?” “_She is_,” answered the nurse, nodding her head toward the cot. Mary Margaret held her breath, and tears stole to her eyes as she stood up, trembling beneath the weight of her infant—for she was still very feeble—and looked toward the pale face of the dead. “And the poor, young crathur in the cot alongside, what has happened to her?” inquired Mary Margaret. “She’s as good as dead, don’t you hear how she raves? Mutter—mutter, she hasn’t strength for more: all the doctors on earth couldn’t save her.” “And her baby?” asked Mary Margaret, filled with compassion, and hugging her own child fondly to her bosom. “Oh? that’s yonder by the dead woman, cold as she is!” Mary Margaret held her child closer, and the tears streamed down her face. “Give me a look at the motherless crathur,” she said, laying her child upon the cot, and reaching forth her arms. The nurse hesitated an instant, and then flung back her apron from the face of the infant. “Poor thing, poor thing, how deathly it looks! what great, wild eyes! How it stares at one!” exclaimed Mary Margaret, half sobbing. “It’s half starved,” answered the nurse, looking down upon her burden with a callous smile; “it won’t feed. To-night will see the end on’t.” Mary Margaret glanced at her own sleeping child, and then turned her brimming eyes upon the other. “Give it here,” she said, “there’s enough for both—give him here.” The nurse frowned and drew up her apron. “The doctor must settle that. It’s not my business, Mrs. Dillon,” she said, harshly. “The doctor! Well, where is he? Be quick and ask him, or let me.” “When he comes in the morning will be time enough,” answered the nurse, preparing to move on. “The morning! Why, the poor crathur’ll be gone afore that,” persisted the kind woman, stepping a pace forward, and supporting herself with difficulty. “Let me have it, I say!” The nurse jerked her arm from the feeble grasp laid upon it, and harshly bade the woman return to her bed and mind her own business. Mary Margaret tottered back and sat down upon the foot of her couch. “It’ll die, it’ll die afore the blessed day is over,” she muttered, sadly, for her maternal heart ached over the orphan. “Arrah, if the doctor was only to the fore!” She ended this piteous exclamation with a joyful outburst. “The saints be praised, here he is, welcome as cowslips in spring!” and regardless of her feeble state, she arose and stood ready to address the doctor, as he came down the ward. The nurse uttered a sharp exclamation, in which an oath was but half smothered, and advancing fiercely toward the cot, flung the famished child down by the sleeping babe of Mary Margaret.