152 PEARLS AND PEBBLES. 



infant. It was lying in a rude cradle, pale as death, 

 wasted almost to a shadow, and exhausted from its last 

 fit of convulsions. I had seen it in her arms only a 

 week before a picture of infantile health and beauty, for 

 indeed it was a lovely babe. Though so young, its 

 pretty head was thick with curls ; now lax and damp 

 they hung round the brow on which death had already ' 

 set its seal. Poor Jessie ! poor mother ! 



" It cannot live," she said mournfully, looking up in 

 my face as if to ask for some word to give her a ray of 

 hope. Alas ! she saw I could give her none. The Lord 

 of life alone could restore that fading flower, for " Life's 

 young wings were fluttering for their flight." 



We put the baby into a warm bath to try and stay 

 the attacks, but in vain ; every half hour fresh fits con- 

 vulsed the tender frame, each one threatening to be the 

 last effort of expiring life. 



It was saddening to see the intense anguish of the 

 mother as she stopped from the work she was compelled 

 to attend to (cooking for the mill hands) to bend over 

 her dying babe, suppressing the grief that none but a 

 mother can feel. I could help her only by holding the 

 child in my lap or watching beside it. 



Jessie's husband was the overseer of the busy work- 

 men employed at the buildings then being erected at the 

 mills, and the wife had to cook for all the men. The 

 master was young and had little sympathy for the poor 

 young mother. What was a babe of the overseer's to 



