do it by reminding herself of Hastings's wounded son, whose letter he had
showed her. And then--in imagination--she began to see thousands of
others like him, in hospital beds, or lying dead in trampled fields. Her
mood softened, the tears came into her eyes.

Suddenly--a slight whimper--a child's whimper--close beside her. She
paused in amazement, looking round her, till the whimper was renewed; and
there, almost at her feet, cradled in the fragrant hollow of a wheat
stook, she saw a tiny child--a baby about a year old, a fair, plump
thing, just waking from sleep.

At sight of the face bending over her, the child set up a louder cry,
which was not angry, however, only forlorn. The tears welled fast into
her blue eyes. She looked piteously at Rachel.

"Mummy, mummy!"

"You poor little thing!" said Rachel. "Whose are you?"

One of the village women who had been helping in the "shocking," she
supposed, had brought the child. She had noticed a little girl playing
about the reapers in the afternoon--no doubt an elder sister brought to
look after the baby. Between the mother and the sister there must have
been some confusion, and one or other would come running back directly.

But meanwhile she took up the child, who at first resisted passionately,
fighting with all its chubby strength against the strange arms. But
Rachel seemed to have a way with her--a spell, which worked. She bent
over the little thing, soothing and cooing to her, and then finding a few
crumbs of cake in the pocket of her overall, the remains of her own lunch