"There! there!" said the nurse. "Be good now, or I must take baby away."

But heaven had taught me another lesson, and instantly, instinctively, I put my baby to my breast. Instantly and instinctively, too, my baby turned to it with its little mouth open and its little fingers feeling for the place.

"Oh God! My God! Oh Mother of my God!"

And then in that happiness that is beyond all earthly bliss--the happiness of a mother when she first clasps her baby to her breast--I began to cry.

I had not cried for months--not since that night in Ellan which I did not wish to remember any more--but now my tears gushed out and ran down my face like rain.

I cried on Martin once more--I could not help it. And looking down at the closed eyes of my child my soul gushed out in gratitude to God, who had sent me this for all I had suffered.

"Hush, hush! You will do yourself a mischief and it will be bad for the milk," said the nurse.

After that I tried to control myself. But I found a fierce and feverish delight in suckling my child. It seemed as if every drop my baby drew gave me a spiritual as well as a physical joy--cooling my blood and my brain and wiping out all my troubles.

Oh mystery of mysteries! Oh miracle of miracles!

My baby was at my breast and my sufferings were at an end.

EIGHTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER

That was a long, long day of happiness.

It was both very long and very short, for it passed like a dream.

What wonderful happenings were crowded into it!

First the nurse, from the dizzy heights of her greater experience and superior knowledge, indulged my infantile anxieties by allowing me to look on while baby was being bathed, and rewarded me for "being good" by many praises of my baby's beauty.

"I've nursed a-many in my time," she said, "but I don't mind saying as I've never had a bonnier babby on my knee. Look at her legs now, so white and plump and dimpled. Have you _ever_ seen anythink so putty?"

I confessed that I never had, and when nurse showed me how to fix the binder, and put on the barrow-coat without disturbing baby while asleep, I thought her a wonderful woman.

Emmerjane, who had with difficulty been kept out of the room last night and was now rushing breathlessly up and down stairs, wished to hold baby for a moment, and at length out of the magnificence of my generosity I allowed her to do so, only warning her, as she loved her life, to hold tight and not let baby fall.

"How'd you mean?" said the premature little mother. "_Me_ let her fall?

Not much!"

Every hour, according to the doctor's orders, I gave baby the breast. I do not know which was my greatest joy--to feast my eyes on her while she sucked and to see her little head fall back with her little mouth open when she had had enough, or to watch her when she stretched herself and hiccoughed, and then grasped my thumb with her little tight fingers.

Oh, the wild, inexpressible delight of it!

Every hour had its surprise. Every few minutes had their cause of wonder.

It rather hurt me when baby cried, and I dare say my own foolish lip would drop at such moments, but when I saw that there were no tears in her eyes, and she was only calling for her food, I pleaded with nurse to let me give her the breast again.

The sun shone all day long, and though the holland window blinds were kept down to subdue the light, for my sake and perhaps for baby's, I thought my room looked perfectly beautiful. It might be poor and shabby, but flights of angels could not have made it more heavenly than it was in my eyes then.

In the afternoon nurse told me I must take some sleep myself, but I would not sleep until baby slept, so she had to give me my cherub again, and I sat up and rocked her and for a while I sang--as softly as I could--a little lullaby.

It was a lullaby I had learned at Nemi from the Italian women in embroidered outside stays, who so love their children; and though I knew quite well that it had been written for the Mother of all Mothers, who, after she had been turned away from every door, had been forced to take refuge in a stable in Bethlehem, I was in such an ecstasy of spiritual happiness that I thought it no irreverence to change it a little and to sing it in my London lodging to my human child.

"_Sleep, little baby, I love thee, I love thee, Sleep, little Queen, I am bending above thee_."

I dare say my voice was sweet that day--a mother's voice is always sweet--for when Emmerjane, who had been out of the room, came back to it with a look of awed solemnity, she said:

"Well, I never did! I thought as 'ow there was a' angel a-come into this room."

"So there is, and here she is," I said, beaming down on my sleeping child.

But the long, short, blissful day came to an end at last, and when night fell and I dropped asleep, there were two names of my dear ones on my lips, and if one of them was the name of him who (as I thought) was in heaven, the other was the name of her who was now lying in my arms.

I may have been poor, but I felt like a queen with all the riches of life in my little room.

I may have sinned against the world and the Church, but I felt as if God had justified me by His own triumphant law.

The whole feminine soul in me seemed to swell and throb, and with my baby at my breast I wanted no more of earth or heaven.

I was still bleeding from the bruises of Fate, but I felt healed of all my wounds, loaded with benefits, crowned with rewards.

Four days passed like this, varied by visits from the doctor and my Welsh landlady. Then my nurse began to talk of leaving me.

I did not care. In my ignorance of my condition, and the greed of my motherly love, I was not sorry she was going so soon. Indeed, I was beginning to be jealous of her, and was looking forward to having my baby all to myself.

But nurse, as I remember, was a little ashamed and tried to excuse herself.

"If I hadn't promised to nurse another lady, I wouldn't leave you, money or no money," she said. "But the girl" (meaning Emmerjane) "is always here, and if she isn't like a nurse she's 'andy."

"Yes, yes, I shall be all right," I answered.

On the fifth day my nurse left me, and shocking as that fact seems to me now, I thought little of it then.

I was entirely happy. I had nothing in the world except my baby, and my baby had nothing in the world except me. I was still in the dungeon that had seemed so dreadful to me before--the great dungeon of London to one who is poor and friendless.

But no matter! I was no longer alone, for there was one more inmate in my prison-house--my child.

SIXTH PART

I AM LOST

_"Is it nothing to you, ye that pass by ... ?"_