say, 'Ah, that is different.'"
"Give me the little one," said Greta with emotion.
Mercy drew the child closer, and there was a pause.
"I was very wrong, Greta," she said in a low tone. "Oh! you would not think what a fearful thing came into my mind a minute ago. Take my Ralphie. Just imagine, my own innocent baby tempted me."
As Greta reached across the bed to lift the child out of his mother's lap, the little fellow was struggling to communicate, by help of a limited vocabulary, some wondrous intelligence of recent events that somewhat overshadowed his little existence. "Puss – dat," many times repeated, was further explained by one chubby forefinger with its diminutive finger nail pointed to the fat back of the other hand.
"He means that the little cat has scratched him," said Greta. "But bless the mite, he is pointing to the wrong hand."
"Puss – dat," continued the child, and peered up into his mother's sightless face. Mercy was all tears in an instant. She had borne yesterday's operation without a groan, but now the scratch on her child's hand went to her heart like a stab.
"Lie quiet, Mercy," said Greta; "it will be gone to-morrow."
"Go-on," echoed the little chap, and pointed out at the window.
"The darling, how he picks up every word!" said Greta.
"He means the horse," explained Mercy.
"Go-on – man – go-on," prattled the little one, with a child's in-difference to all conversation except his own.
"Bless the love, he must remember the doctor and his horse," said Greta.
Mercy was putting her lips to the scratch on the little hand.
"Oh, Greta, I am very childish; but a mother's heart melts like butter."
"Batter," echoed the child, and wriggled out of Greta's arms to the ground, where he forthwith clambered on to the stool, and possessed himself of a slice of bread which lay on the table at the bedside. Then the fair curly head disappeared like a glint of sunlight through the door to the kitchen.
"What shall I care if other mothers see my child? I shall see him too," said Mercy, and she sighed. "Yes," she added, softly, "his hands and his eyes and his feet, and his soft hair."
"Try to sleep an hour or two, dear," said Greta, "and then perhaps you may get up this afternoon – only perhaps, you know, but we'll see."
"Yes, Greta, yes. How kind you are."
"You will be kinder to me some day," said Greta very tenderly.
"How very selfish I am. But then it is so hard not to be selfish when you are a mother. Only fancy, I never think of myself as Mercy now. No, never. I'm just Ralphie's mama. When Ralphie came, Mercy must have died in some way. That's very silly, isn't it? Only it does seem true."
"Man – go-on – batter," was heard from the kitchen, mingled with the patter of tiny feet.
"Listen to him. How tricksome he is! And you should hear him cry 'Oh!' You would say, 'That child has had an eye knocked out.' And then, in a minute, behold he is laughing once more. There, I'm selfish again; but I will make up for it some day, if God is good."
"Yes, Mercy, He is good," said Greta.
Her arm rested on the door-jamb, and her head dropped on to it; her eyes swam. Did it seem at that moment as if God had been very good to these two women?
"Greta," said Mercy, and her voice fell to a whisper, "do you think Ralphie is like – anybody?"
"Yes, dear, he is like you."
There was a pause. Then Mercy's hand strayed from under the bedclothes and plucked at Greta's gown.
"Do you think," she asked, in a voice all but inaudible, "that father knows who it is?"
"I can not say —we have never told him."
"Nor I – he never asked, never once – only, you know, he gave up his work at the mine, and went back to the charcoal-pit when Ralphie came. But he never said a word."
Greta did not answer. At that moment the bedroom door was pushed open with a little lordly bang, and the great wee man entered with his piece of bread insecurely on one prong of a fork.
"Toas'," he explained complacently, "toas'," and walked up to the empty grate and stretched his arm over the fender at the cold bars.
"Why, there's no fire for toast, you darling goose," said Greta, catching him in her arms, much to his masculine vexation.
Mercy had risen on an elbow, and her face was full of the yearning of the blind. Then she lay back.
"Never mind," she said to herself in a faltering voice, "let me lie quiet and think of all his pretty ways."
IV
Greta returned home toward noon, laughing and crying a little to herself as she walked, for she was full of a dear delicious envy. She was thinking that she could take all the shame and all the pain for all the joy of Mercy's motherhood.
God had given Greta no children.
Hugh Ritson came in to their early dinner and she told him how things went at the cottage of the old Laird Fisher. Only once before had she mentioned Mercy or the child, and he looked confused and awkward. After the meal was over he tried to say something which had been on his mind for weeks.
"But if anything should happen after all," he began, "and Mercy should not recover – or if she should ever want to go anywhere – might we not take – would you mind, Greta – I mean it might even help her – you see," he said, breaking down nearly, "there is the child, it's a sort of duty, you know – and then a good home and upbringing – "
"Don't tempt me," said Greta. "I've thought of it a hundred times."
About five o'clock the same evening a knock came to the door, and old Laird Fisher entered. His manner was more than usually solemn and constrained.
"I's coom't to say as ma lass's wee thing is taken badly," he said, "and rayder suddent."
Greta rose from her seat and put on her hat and cloak. She was hastening down the road while the charcoal-burner was still standing in the middle of the floor.
When Greta reached the old charcoal-burner's cottage, the little one was lying in a drowsy state in Mercy's arms. Its breathing seemed difficult; sometimes it started in terror; it was feverish and suffered thirst. The mother's wistful face was bent down on it with an indescribable expression. There were only the trembling lips to tell of the sharp struggle that was going on within. But the yearning for a sight of the little flushed countenance, the tearless appeal for but one glimpse of the drowsy little eyes, the half-articulate cry of a mother's heart against the fate that made the child she had suckled at her breast a stranger, whose very features she might not know – all this was written in that blind face.
"Is he pale?" said Mercy. "Is he sleeping? He does not talk now, but only starts and cries, and sometimes coughs."
"When did this begin?" asked Greta.
"Toward four o'clock. He had been playing, and I noticed that
