y had another coughing fit.
We raised him up and he choked and strangled as before, and after the
coughing, cried as if in pain, without opening his eyes. Poor little
thing! Poor baby!

Again we sat still for a while without speaking; then--"I'm so
frightened--everything is so dismal," whispered Karen.

Deep silence broken only by the clock's ticking and the baby's
breathing.

"I think I must go," she added after a minute.

"That is mean of you," whispered I.

"I must go, too," whispered Munda. "They are always so anxious at home
when I don't come."

"I must go too," whispered Mina.

Then I got a little angry. "Oh well, all right, go, every one of you!
All right, go on, if you want to be so mean."

And only think, they did go! They ran out of the door, all three,
without a word more. Just then the baby had another attack and I had to
hold him up quite a long time before he could get his breath again.

And now I was all alone in Mother Brita's little house. Never in my
life had I been in there before, and it was anything but pleasant, you
may well believe. It was very dark in all the corners, and the poor baby
coughed and coughed; the candle burned lower and lower and the clock
ticked on slowly and solemnly. No sign of Mother Brita.

Well, I would sit here. I wouldn't stir from here even if Mother Brita
didn't come back before it was pitch-dark night--no, indeed, I would
not. I would not. Not for anything would I leave this pitiful little
suffering baby alone.

He was certainly very sick, very, very sick; perhaps God would come to
take him to-night. Just think, if He should come while I sat there!----

At first this made me feel afraid, but then I thought that I need not be
afraid of God--of Him who is kinder than any one in the world! The baby
coughed painfully and I lifted him up again.

Everything was so queer, so wonderfully queer! First had we four been
racing about, playing pranks and thinking only of fun all the
afternoon--perhaps it was wrong to play such mischievous pranks--and now
here was I alone taking care of a little baby I had never known anything
about;--a little baby that God or His angels might soon come for and
take away. I had not the least bit of fear now. I only felt as if I were
in church,--it was so solemn and so still. In a little while, this poor
baby might be in Heaven,--in that beautiful place flooded with glorious
light,--with God. And I, just a little girl down here on earth,