Norah, with little knowledge and less care, took no thought for the life
of her patient. She was intent on making him fit to put between her clean
sheets. She found the tattered garments none too tenacious in their hold
to the little, half-naked body. One or two buttons and a string were their
only attachments. Norah pulled them off with gingerly fingers, and holding
them at arm's length took them to the bath-room window whence she pitched
them down into the paved court below, that led to the kitchen regions.
Thomas could burn them, or put them on the ash pile by and by. She was
certain they would never go on again, and wondered how they had been made
to hold together this last time.

Morton had not come yet, but Norah discovering a pool of blood under the
little bare shoulder, lifted him quickly into the great white bath-tub and
turned on the warm water. There was no use wasting time, and getting blood
on white tiles that she would have to scrub. She was not unkind but she
hated dirt, and partly supporting the child with one arm she applied
herself to scrubbing him as vigorously as possible with the other hand.
The shock of the water, not being very warm at first, brought returning
consciousness to the boy for a moment, in one long shuddering sigh. The
eyelashes trembled for an instant on the white cheeks, and his eyes opened;
gazed dazedly, then wildly, on the strange surroundings, the water, and the
vigorous Irish woman who had him in her power. He threw his arms up with
a struggling motion, gasped as if with sudden pain and lost consciousness
again, relaxing once more into the strong red arm that held him. It was
just at this critical moment that Morton entered the bath-room.

Morton was a trim, apple-cheeked Scotch woman of about thirty years, with
neat yellow-brown hair coiled on the top of her head, a cheerful tilt to
her freckled nose, and eyes so blue that in company with her rosy cheeks
one thought at once of a flag. Heather and integrity exhaled from her very