silk.

The two women carried him to a bed in a large room at the back of the
house, not far from the nursery, and laid him on a blanket, with his
shoulder stanched with soft linen rags. Morton was softly drying his hair
and crooning to the child--although he was still unconscious--begging
Norah to put the blanket over him lest he catch cold; and Norah was still
vigorously drying his feet unmindful of Morton's pleading, when the doctor
entered with a trained nurse. The boy lay white and still upon the blanket
as the two women, startled, drew back from their task. The body, clean now,
and beautifully shaped, might have been marble except for the delicate blue
veins in wrists and temples. In spite of signs of privation and lack of
nutrition there was about the boy a showing of strength in well developed
muscles, and it went to the heart to see him lying helpless so, with his
drenched gold hair and his closed eyes. The white limbs did not quiver, the
lifeless fingers drooped limply, the white chest did not stir with any sign
of breath, and yet the tender lips that curved in a cupid's bow, were not
altogether gone white.

"What a beautiful child!" exclaimed the nurse involuntarily as she came
near the bed. "He looks like a young god!"

"He's far more likely to be a young devil," said the doctor grimly, leaning
over him with practised eyes, and laying a listening ear to the quiet
breast. Then, he started back.

"He's cold as ice! What have you been doing to him? It wasn't a case of
drowning, was it? You haven't been giving him a bath at such a time as
this, have you? Did you want to kill the kid outright?"