"There must be an inquest," said some one in the crowd; "we ought to know whether the child was dead before it was thrown into the water." "I hope to Heaven it was!" cried the woman. And I said to myself that, if that were the case, it would not be murder--not murder, but some mad, miserable mother's way out of some dreadful difficulty. Surely on the beautiful, despairing face I had not seen the brand of murder. If the little one had been dead, that would lessen the degree of wickedness so greatly. The woman who had dried and kissed the tiny waxen face bent over it now. "I am sure," she said, "that the child was alive when it touched the water." "How do you know?" asked the superintendent, curiously. "Look at the face, sir, and you will see." "I see nothing," he replied. "I do," she said. "I see just what you would see on the face of a baby suddenly plunged into cold water. I see the signs of faint, baby surprise. Look at the baby brows and the little hand spread wide open. It was living when it touched the water, I am sure of that." "A doctor will soon settle that question," said the superintendent. Then the little one was carried by rough but not ungentle hands to the dead-house on the hill. I went with it. I overheard the superintendent tell the master of the work-house that I was a rich man--an invalid--and that I passed a great deal of my time at Brighton. In a lowered voice he added that I was very eccentric, and that happening to be on the Chain Pier that morning, I had insisted upon paying the expenses of the little funeral. "A kind, Christian gentlemen," the master said. "I am glad to hear it." I shall never forget the pitiful sight of that tiny white form laid on the table alone--quite alone--I could not forget it. The matron had found a little white dress to wrap it in, and with kindly thought had laid some white chrysanthemums on the little, innocent breast. Whenever I see a chrysanthemum now it brings back to my mind the whole scene--the bare, white walls, the clean wooden floor, the black tressels, and the table whereon the fair, tender little body lay--all alone. CHAPTER IV. Our little life in this world seems of little count. Throw a stone into the sea--it makes a splash that lasts for one second, then it is all over; the waves roll on just as though it had not been dropped. The death of this one little child, whom no one knew and for whom no one cared, was of less than no account; it made a small paragraph in the newspapers--it had caused some little commotion on the pier--just a little hurry at the work-house, and then it was forgotten. What was such a little waif and stray--such a small, fair, tender little creature to the gay crowd?