will nurse it."

"Let them bring it to me, for the love of God!" exclaimed the lady, "for
I will offer that charity to the child of others, since it has not
pleased Heaven that I should be permitted to nourish my own."

Don Juan then called the housekeeper, and taking the infant from her
arms he placed it in those of the lady, saying, "Behold, madam, this is
the present that has been made to us to-night, and it is not the first
of the kind that we have received, since but few months pass wherein we
do not find such God-sends hooked on to the hinges of our doors."

The lady had meanwhile taken the infant into her arms, and looked
attentively at its face, but remarking the poverty of its clothing,
which was, nevertheless, extremely clean, she could not restrain her
tears. She cast the kerchief which she had worn around her head over her
bosom, that she might succour the infant with decency, and bending her
face over that of the child, she remained long without raising her head,
while her eyes rained torrents of tears on the little creature she was
nursing.

The babe was eager to be fed, but finding that it could not obtain the
nourishment it sought, the lady returned the babe to Don Juan, saying,
"I have vainly desired to be charitable to this deserted infant, and
have but shown that I am new to such matters. Let your servants put a
little honey on the lips of the child, but do not suffer them to carry
it through the streets at such an hour; bid them wait until the day
breaks, and let the babe be once more brought to me before they take it
away, for I find a great consolation in the sight of it."