A MOTHER OF SORROWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 22, 27 September 1895, Page 19

A MOTHER OF SORROWS.

(Caroline Mason in Catholic News.) IT was the dawning of a new July day with no dawo wind to stir the dead hot air or to move (he dost, fine bb an impalpable powder which lay thickly everywhere. The trees of Portsea Square stood black and motionless, tbeir dense foliage rising above and stretching over the uodden grass and littered asphalt walks. There w,s a Bait smell from the harbour, but no wind with it, tor the tide was at its loweet ebb. It was ebb tid , too, in the faint' pulses of sick men and women and little children, and in the sinking hearts of those who had watchad with them for the morning, but to whom the morning had brought no hope. From the windows of a chambsr in the brick row on the east Bide of the little park tha faint li^ht of a night lamp still shone through the clustering vine leaves. Glag 8388 38 of medicine, a bowl of ioa, a tall white pitcher stool upji tha winiov sill, placed there fjr coolness. Within tha room bore marks of haste and confusion, which showed it to have been a battlefield batween life and death through the night ; and a tall woman in a white dresg was wilkiug to and fro, carrying a child in her arm*. The little f*ca was wm and pitifully sunken about the eyes. The mofher'a faca was fair and beautiful, but it wore the stamp which only mortal anguish gives. A wickercradle stood beside the unused bed, draped daintily with lace and Bilk. As the mother walked soon anseea dreai turned her face grey and ashy, and, breaking from her sleaiy pace up and down the room, she crossed to the cradle and laid the baby down. It moaned and moved its head restlessly upon the pillow, but the mother left the room aid passed with swift feat to another door where she knocked and spoke. Raturniog, sha t iok the child again' in her arms and walked as before.

Presently a woman appeared in the doorway, an older woman, with heavy ayes and a grievous droop of the month. She took the baby from the mother's arms. " Now go and reat, Mary," she said, drowsily ; « you hare not slept all night. There are three hours yet before anyone will be ■tirring in the house." The mother, who had beea oalUd Mary, bent and kissed h«r baby and without speaking left the room. She stood for a moment at a window in the hall outside, looking down into the park. " Yes, it is there again," she said, toftly. " Poor mother I Poor little baby I" aha spoke in a soothing tone, half dwamily. What she «w wag the pale coloured canopy of a baby carriage, moving slowly to anl fro under the dusty trees. She had seen it there at midnight. Ab she looked she panted for breath and strove agaioet a dull faintness which crept ovar her. An impulse was upon her to escape from the house, even from her sick child, but chiefly from that terror of hipjleaa malnjsa which had overtaken her just now, and which she knew was coming back. " By and by it will cotne to stay," she i*id to herself, as she piß3addowa the staircase, resting har feverish hand upon the cool rail, "when the biby dies. Then I an never get away from it again." She had reached the foot of the stairs now and stood in the dim light for a moment, her hands clasped and pressed against her forehead, her whole frame trembling. " Then— O God pity me I" The words were breathed rather than spoken and the look on her face was of despair, Opening the house door, she crossed the street and entering the paik between the iron pos's she passed into the shadows of the treei and walked on hardly knowing where she went. But the treei seemed to smother her and the oppression of the languorous air wn as of a hand laid tangibly upon her heart. Prom a church tower a clock struck 4 and the birds began to wake up in the trees. She had reached the central fountain now, snd in the little open space she saw something which startled her for a moment, although she knew it well-the pale canopy of the baby carriage she h.d watched night after night from her window. It was drawn up beside one of the wooden seats, and on this seat a young woman was sitting, in a clean cotton gowo, with a white handkerchief tied upon her brea B t— i w^-nan with a brown face and smooth black hair. One hand laid lightly upon the handle of the little carnage, and its touch, even upon the wooden frame, was infinitely carressing ; the light pressure, which was scarcely more than a pulsation, served to give a soft, continuous motion. In her other hand the woman held a Rosary ; her eyes were closed ; her lips were moving in praytr. 8 v

Mary, whoie light foot made do sound upon tbe walk, had reached tbe little carriage now, and had bent, with a mother's instinct, to see the child which lay beneath tbe coarse canopy, oovered with a bit of woollen blanket. An inward sob stirred her as she aaw bow like the little face upon tha poor pillow was to her own baby's face, in its sharp, pinched ontline and its pallor. " Bat it is too pale," she thought, and with quick alarm she tamed back tha blanket and touched one tiny band. It was Icy cold and the pulse was still. As Mary lifted herself with the awe of what she had discovered full upon her, the mother raised her eyes and, seeing the tall, fair figure in white in the half light before her, with the endless pity in her eyes, she clasped her hands and half rose to fall upon her knees, supposing it to be the Holy Virgin or one of the saints to whom she bad betn praying. " Your baby " Mary tried to speak, bnt her voice faltered. Tbe woman knew then that her visitor was mortal, and mar. mnred in broken words :—: — ' "Ah, madam I yes, my bady, He sleeps. So, that is well;" and she touched the yellow blanket gently, as only a mother touches her baby's little limbs. Mary looked at her, her eyes heavy with unshed tears, doubting how to apeak the truth ; but when she spoke it was not what she had thought of saying, only, very softly : "My baby is dying. Ido not think she will live through another night." '■ Ah, what a sorrow," whispered the other. " Yei," Mary answered, limply. " All my babies die. I have had three. God does not give me milk for them." " Ah, Jesu I and so they die ; " and the French woman shook her head mournfully. " I coma here all the nights," she said, looking up at Mary, whose face had grown fixed and strange ; " that is good for so sick babies. I stay so late ; bat then that policemao, he send me home. Where I live is Foundry Street. Bat I come back— yep, I come back. Then it shall go better with this leetel baby." " Yes, he is asleep now, and he will not be sick any more " ; and Mary drew aside the blanket With sudden doubt the mother bant over her child, pressing her cheek against his, and clasping bis hands. When she knew that he was dead she gathered the wasted little figure in her arms with a great maternal gesture aid held it close against her heart, her own face as white as his, murmuring exclamaiions and words of love and pity in French. For a time Mary stood in silence by her side, touching her shoulder with one band as if to let her know that she was not alone, Then at last she said with soft authority : — " Now yon must take tbe baby home— the dear little baby. I want to go with you, and my baby needs me now." The woman lifted her bead, facing Mary wi hej es wbic ) had a strange, childlike piteousness. " Will Madame tell me what I shall do ? " she faltered. For answer Mary smoothed and straightened ttn pillows in tbe carriage and made the mother lay her child back in its place, then as their bands met Mary said, as if it were a prayer :—: — " God comfort you, and comfort me, and save us from what i 8i 8 worse than death." Then she stood asi Je to give tbe*poor mother her right to pace her own hands alone upon tbe sacred little ark and slowly wheel it on its sorrowful journey, Tbus they passed in silence, back through the sultry paths toward the Foundry street tenement. When they reached the walk before her own house Mary pointed upward to the open window and sad : — " My baby is there." The woman s'ood stil', looking up through the teais which had been streaming in patient grief down her cheeks. 11 Alas," Bhe cried, " madame is an angel, and yet, such sorrows 1 Madame must loie the leetel child, three that madame loved I " (To be Continued)