the theatre, I saw a large rocking chair at the end of the floor on
which the baby slept, and I was astonished on looking closer to see
the Major in it. His gentle face had a worn and weary look on it, and
the waiter told me next morning that the Major had walked the hall
pretty much all night for several nights, and that he had carried the
chair there for him to rest in. The baby, the waiter said, was not
likely to live. As I went up after breakfast, I stopped to inquire,
and the little one's mother, whose eyes were red with weeping, said
I could come in, adding, "It would hardly make any difference, now."
There sat the Major by the bed, with all manner of toys and dolls
spread out on the coverlet, before the sick child's eyes. Like a man's
idea of doing something, he had bought them. Poor fellow! it was all
he could think of to do. The little blue eyes were changed and the
thin little hands were restless. They would pick out a toy and lay it
aside, and then the dear old Major would arrange them freshly, so as
to attract her attention. I think she was delirious, for she asked
that her "tose" be given her, that she might talk with the "Mady." And
then the poor fellow would look up to the mother, and say: "I think
she can to-morrow, madam; I think she can to-morrow, don't you?"

I think he hardly knew what he said it for, except with the vague idea
of giving somebody hope. Anyhow, his voice seemed to arouse the little
one, and she drew her little thin hand over his face, and said, in an
inquiring tone, "Mady?" I think the world was floating out of sight
and she wasn't certain. The Major turned, with a look of alarm, to the
mother at the window, and said, "Oh, do you think--" But whatever he
was going to ask was answered before he asked it, for the mother leaned
her head against the window pane and sobbed. He looked around the room
quickly, as one who would look for help from somewhere, he knew not
where, and then slipping out of his chair to his knees by the bedside,