. . well, they would just have to, and that was all about it!

These brave thoughts notwithstanding, she could not but wish -- as she sat waiting in a public coffee-room, the door of which opened and shut a dozen times to the minute, every one who entered fixing her with a hard and curious stare -- wish that Tilly had picked on a quieter hotel, one more suitable to a lady travelling alone. She was glad when the waiter ushered her up the red-carpeted stairs to her friend's private sitting-room.

Tilly was so changed that she hardly knew her. Last seen in the first flush of wifehood, high-bosomed, high-coloured, high-spirited, she seemed to have shrunk together, fallen in. Her pale face was puffy; her eyes deeply ringed.

"You poor thing! What you must have suffered!"

Mary said this more than once as she listened to Tilly's tale. It was that of a child born strong and healthy -- "As fine a boy as ever you saw, Mary!" -- with whom all had gone well until, owing to an unfortunate accident, they had been forced to change the wet-nurse. Since then they had tried one nurse after another; had tried handfeeding, goat's milk, patent mixtures; but to no purpose. The child had just wasted away. Till he was now little more than a skeleton. Nor had he ever sat up or taken notice. The whole day long he lay and wailed, till it nearly broke your heart to hear it.

"And me . . . who'd give my life's blood to help 'im!"

"Have you seen MacMullen? What does he say?"

Tilly answered with a hopeless lift of her shoulders. "'E calls it by a fine name, Mary -- they all do. And 'as given us a new food to try. But the long and short of it is, if the wasting isn't stopped, Baby will die." And, the ominous word spoken, Tilly's composure gave way: the tears came with a gush and streamed down her cheeks, dropping even into her lap, before she managed to fish a handkerchief from her petticoat pocket.

"There, there, you old fool!" she rebuked herself. "Sorry, love. It comes of seeing your dear old face again. For weeping and wailing doesn't help either, does it?"

"Poor old girl, it is hard on you . . . and when you've so wanted children."

"Yes, and'm never likely to 'ave another. Other people can get 'em by the dozen -- as 'ealthy as can be."

"Well, I shouldn't give up hope of pulling him through -- no matter what the doctors say. You know, Tilly .