"Oh, mother, bring me my baby. I shall die if you do not!"

"Your baby is in heaven," said Mrs. Dinneford, softening her voice
to a tone of tender regret.

Edith caught her breath, grew very white, and then, with a low,
wailing cry that sent a shiver through Mrs. Dinneford's heart, fell
back, to all appearance dead.

The mother did not call for help, but sat by the bedside of her
daughter, and waited for the issue of this new struggle between life
and death. There was no visible excitement, but her mouth was
closely set and her cold blue eyes fixed in a kind of vacant stare.

Edith was Mrs. Dinneford's only child, and she had loved her with
the strong, selfish love of a worldly and ambitious woman. In her
own marriage she had not consulted her heart. Mr. Dinneford's social
position and wealth were to her far more than his personal
endowments. She would have rejected him without a quicker pulse-beat
if these had been all he had to offer. He was disappointed, she was
not. Strong, self-asserting, yet politic, Mrs Dinneford managed her
good husband about as she pleased in all external matters, and left
him to the free enjoyment of his personal tastes, preferences and
friendships. The house they lived in, the furniture it contained,
the style and equipage assumed by the family, were all of her
choice, Mr. Dinneford giving merely a half-constrained or
half-indifferent consent. He had learned, by painful and sometimes.
humiliating experience, that any contest with Mrs. Helen Dinneford
upon which he might enter was sure to end in his defeat.