"O! O, O!" came the long, pitiful, shivering cries, as the mother
gathered her in her arms.

"What is it? What did you do? How came you to?" And all the while
she moved quickly here and there, to cupboard and press-drawer,
holding the child fast, and picking up as she could with one hand,
cotton wool, and sweet-oil flask, and old linen bits; and so she
bound it up, saying still, every now and again, as all she could
say,--"What _did_ you do? How came you to?"

Till, in a little lull of the fearful smart, as the air was shut
away, and the oil felt momentarily cool upon the ache, Luke answered
her,--

"He hed I dare-hn't, and ho I did!"

"You little fool!"

The rough word was half reaction of relief, that the child could
speak at all, half horrible spasm of all her own motherly nerves
that thrilled through and through with every pang that touched the
little frame, hers also. Mothers never do part bonds with babies
they have borne. Until the day they die, each quiver of their life
goes back straight to the heart beside which it began.

"You Marcus! What did you mean?"

"I meant she darsn't; and she no business to 'a dars't," said Mark,
pale with remorse and fright, but standing up stiff and manful, with