I could have cried for her as she stood there, awkward, before the little fire, with great blobs of tears dropping off her cheeks, rubbing them away with her poor red hands. I knew no more how to resist her, in that appeal she made to my happiness, than if I had been a child like a baby in my lap. The tears came into my eyes, in spite of myself. In the impulse of the moment I had nearly broken forth and confided to her my terror and grief about Harry, and this dreadful war that was beginning. She took possession of me, like the soldier’s wife, with a nearer fellow feeling than sympathy. Poor, forlorn, uncouth creature, she stood before me like my old self, strangely transmogrified, but never to be denied. I could not answer her--for what could I say? Could I cast her off, poor child, led by the instincts of her heart to me of all people? And oh dear, dear, what a ridiculous contrast to all the passionate, elevated feeling of her story, could I take her all in her checked pinafore and blue stockings, a pathetic grotesque apparition, to be baby’s nurse and my little maid? There never was a harder dilemma: and imagination, you may be sure, did its very best to make things worse, by bringing up before me the pretty, tidy, fresh little maid I had been dreaming of, with a white apron and a little cap, and plump arms to hold my baby in. What could I do? and oh, if I could not resist my fate, what would Harry say to me? How he would shrug his shoulders and admire my good taste; how he would look at her in his curious way as if she were a strange animal; how he would laugh at me and my soft heart! I got quite restless as the creature stood there opposite to me, twisting her poor foot and clasping her hands hard as she thrust them into the bosom of her pinafore. I could not stand against her wistful eyes. I grew quite desperate looking at her. Could I ever trust my child in those long red arms that looked all elbow--and yet how could I send her away? “Lizzie, my poor girl,” cried I, remonstrating, “don’t you see I am very, very sorry for you? But look here now: my baby is very young, not three months old, and I could never dare trust him to a young girl like you. You must see that very well, a girl with so much sense; and besides, I want somebody who knows how to do things. I don’t think I could teach you myself; and besides----” Here I fairly broke down, stopped by the flood of arguments which rose one after another, not to be defeated, in Lizzie’s round anxious eyes.