sleeves. "Hot cloths! Tear up a sheet--or anything! Got an oilstove?
I want a tea-kettle boiling in the room. She's got to have the steam.
If that don't do it we'll raise an umbrella over her and throw a sheet
over, and hold the kettle under till the steam gets to her that way.
Got any ipecac?"

The Young Wife obeyed orders, white-faced and shaking. Once Blanche
Devine glanced up at her sharply.

"Don't you dare faint!" she commanded.

And the fight went on. Gradually the breathing that had been so
frightful became softer, easier. Blanche Devine did not relax. It was
not until the little figure breathed gently in sleep that Blanche
Devine sat back, satisfied. Then she tucked a cover at the side of the
bed, took a last satisfied look at the face on the pillow, and turned
to look at the wan, disheveled Young Wife.

"She's all right now. We can get the doctor when morning comes--though
I don't know's you'll need him."

The Young Wife came round to Blanche Devine's side of the bed and stood
looking up at her.

"My baby died," said Blanche Devine simply. The Young Wife gave a
little inarticulate cry, put her two hands on Blanche Devine's broad
shoulders, and laid her tired head on her breast.

"I guess I'd better be going," said Blanche Devine.

The Young Wife raised her head. Her eyes were round with fright.

"Going! Oh, please stay! I'm so afraid. Suppose she should take sick
again! That awful--breathing----"

"I'll stay if you want me to."

"Oh, please! I'll make up your bed and you can rest----"

"I'm not sleepy. I'm not much of a hand to sleep anyway. I'll sit up
here in the hall, where there's a light. You get to bed. I'll watch
and see that everything's all right. Have you got something I can read
out here--something kind of lively--with a love story in it?"

So the night went by. Snooky slept in her white bed. The Very Young
Wife half dozed in her bed, so near the little one. In the hall, her
stout figure looming grotesque in wall shadows, sat Blanche Devine,
pretending to read. Now and then she rose and tiptoed into the bedroom
with miraculous quiet, and stooped over the little bed and listened and
looked--and tiptoed away again, satisfied.

The Young Husband came home from his business trip next day with tales
of snowdrifts and stalled engines. Blanche Devine breathed a sigh of
relief when she saw him from her kitchen window. She watched the house
now with a sort of proprie