She could think of him now without a shudder; even a lingering remnant
of tenderness would flare up in her heart when she remembered he was
the baby's father. Perhaps he would see the child sometime, and her
sweet baby ways would plead to him more eloquently than could all her
words to right the wrong he had done, and so the days slipped by and
the little mother was happy, after the long drawn out days of waiting
and misery. She would sing the baby to sleep in her low contralto
voice, and feel that it mattered not whether the world smiled or
frowned on her, so long as baby approved.

But this blessed state of affairs was not long to continue. Anna, as
she grew stronger, felt the necessity of seeking employment, but to
this the baby proved a formidable obstacle. No one would give a young
woman, hampered with a child, work. She would come back to the baby at
night worn out in mind and body, after a day of fruitless searching.
These long trips of the little mother, with the consequent long absence
and exhaustion on her return, did not improve the little one's health,
and almost before Anna realized it was ailing, the baby sickened and
died. It was her cruelest blow. For the child's sake she had taken up
her interest in life, made plans; and was ready to work her fingers to
the bone, but it was not to be and with the first falling of the clods
on the little coffin, Anna felt the last ray of hope extinguished from
her heart.




CHAPTER IX.

ON THE THRESHOLD OF SHELTER.