"You are one of them, my Connie. Now he is so great and so strong that he can carry father and mother and all of us in his bosom." Then we sung a child's hymn in praise of the God of little children, and the little ones went to bed. Constance was tired now, and we left her with Wynnie. We too went early to bed. About midnight my wife and I awoke together--at least neither knew which waked the other. The wind was still raving about the house, with lulls between its charges. "There's a child crying!" said my wife, starting up. I sat up too, and listened. "There is some creature," I granted. "It is an infant," insisted my wife. "It can't be either of the boys." I was out of bed in a moment, and my wife the same instant. We hurried on some of our clothes, going to the windows and listening as we did so. We seemed to hear the wailing through the loudest of the wind, and in the lulls were sure of it. But it grew fainter as we listened. The night was pitch dark. I got a lantern, and hurried out. I went round the house till I came under our bed-room windows, and there listened. I heard it, but not so clearly as before. I set out as well as I could judge in the direction of the sound. I could find nothing. My lantern lighted only a few yards around me, and the wind was so strong that it blew through every chink, and threatened momently to blow it out. My wife was by my side before I knew she was coming. "My dear!" I said, "it is not fit for you to be out." "It is as fit for me as for a child, anyhow," she said. "Do listen." It was certainly no time for expostulation. All the mother was awake in Ethelwyn's bosom. It would have been cruelty to make her go in, though she was indeed ill-fitted to encounter such a night-wind. Another wail reached us. It seemed to come from a thicket at one corner of the lawn. We hurried thither. Again a cry, and we knew we were much nearer to it. Searching and searching we went. "There it is!" Ethelwyn almost screamed, as the feeble light of the lantern fell on a dark bundle of something under a bush. She caught at it. It gave another pitiful wail--the poor baby of some tramp, rolled up in a dirty, ragged shawl, and tied round with a bit of string, as if it had been a parcel of clouts. She set off running with it to the house, and I followed, much fearing she would miss her way in the dark, and fall. I could hardly get up with her, so eager was she to save the child. She darted up to her own room, where the fire was not yet out. "Run to the kitchen, Harry, and get some hot water. Take the two jugs there--you can empty them in the sink: you won't know where to find anything. There will be plenty in the boiler."