are wicked, and the one
who did this was wicked enough."

There was a slight suggestion on the part of the little group as to the
morning being a dry one. We parted on very satisfactory terms.

I went on the pier, and under the wooden shelter where I had sat last
night I saw a group--the superintendent of the police with one of the
officers, the manager of the pier, the keepers of the different stalls,
a few strangers, and Jim, the boatman, who had found the little bundle
dripping wet. Oh, Heaven, the pathos of it! On the wooden seat lay the
little bundle, so white, so fair, like a small, pale rose-bud, and by
it, in a wet heap, lay the black and gray shawl. I knew it in one
moment; there was not another word to be said; that was the same shawl I
had seen in the woman's hands when she dropped the little bundle into
the sea--the self-same. I had seen it plainly by the bright, fitful
gleam of the moon. The superintendent said something to me, and I went
forward to look at the little child--so small, so fair, so tender--how
could any woman, with a woman's heart, drop that warm, soft little
nursling into the cold, deep sea? It was a woman who killed Joel--a
woman who slew Holofernes--but the woman who drowned this little, tiny
child was more cruel by far than they.

"What a sweet little face!" said the superintendent; "it looks just as
though it were made of wax."

I bent forward. Ah! if I had doubted before, I could doubt no longer.
The little face, even in its waxen pallor, was like the beautiful one I
had seen in its white despair last night. Just the same cluster of hair,
the same beautiful mouth and molded chin. Mother and child, I knew and
felt sure. The little white garments were dripping, and some kind,
motherly woman in the crowd came forward and dried the little face.

"Poor little thing!" she said; "how I should like to take those wet
things off, and make it warm by a good fire!"

"It will never be warm again in this world," said one of the boatmen.
"There is but little chance when a child has lain all night in the sea."

"All night in the sea!" said the pitiful woman; "and my children lay so
warm and comfortable in their little soft beds. All night in the sea!
Poor little motherless thing!"

She seemed to take it quite for granted that the child must be
motherless; in her loving, motherly heart she could not think of such a
crime as a mother destroying her own child. I saw that all the men who
stood rou