such little children. I had never been where there was a baby so little
as my own.

"I bought the cordial, and just before I started gave the baby some. I
thought that I was very careful. I meant to be so. I would not for the
whole world have given my baby one half-drop too much.

"It soon slept a calm, placid sleep, and I noticed that the little face
grew paler. 'Your baby is dying,' said a woman, who was traveling in the
third-class carriage with me. 'It is dying, I am sure.' I laughed and
cried; it was so utterly impossible, I thought; it was well and smiling
only one hour ago. I never remembered the cordial. Afterwards, when I
came to make inquiries, I found that I had given her too much. I need
not linger on details.

"You see, that if my little one died by my fault, it was most
unconscious on my part; it was most innocently, most ignorantly done. I
make no excuse. I tell you the plain truth as it stands. I caused my
baby's death, but it was most innocently done; I would have given my own
life to have brought hers back. You, my judge, can you imagine any fate
more terrible than standing quite alone on the Brighton platform with a
dead child in my arms?

"I had very little money. I knew no soul in the place. I had no more
idea what to do with a dead child than a baby would have had. I call it
dead," she continued, "for I believe it to have been dead, no matter
what any doctor says. It was cold--oh, my Heaven, how cold!--lifeless;
no breath passed the little lips! the eyes were closed--the pretty hand
stiff. I believed it dead. I wandered down to the beach and sat down on
the stones.