"
"_She_ didn't want to live," replied Nora. Her glances stole
somewhat fearfully toward the door of the adjoining room--the
bedroom where the mother lay dead.
"There wasn't nothing but disgrace ahead for both of them.
Everybody'll be glad."
"Such a fine baby," muttered the abstracted young doctor.
"Love-children always is," said Nora. She was looking sadly and
tenderly down at the tiny, symmetrical form--symmetrical to her
and the doctor's expert eyes. "Such a deep chest," she sighed.
"Such pretty hands and feet. A real love-child." There she
glanced nervously at the doctor; it was meet and proper and
pious to speak well of the dead, but she felt she might be going
rather far for a "good woman."
"I'll try it," cried the young man in a resolute tone. "It can't
do any harm, and----"
Without finishing his sentence he laid hold of the body by the
ankles, swung it clear of the table. As Nora saw it dangling
head downwards like a dressed suckling pig on a butcher's hook
she vented a scream and darted round the table to stop by main
force this revolting desecration of the dead. Stevens called out
sternly: "Mind your business, Nora! Push the table against the
wall and get out of the way. I want all the room there is."
"Oh, Doctor--for the blessed Jesus' sake----"
"Push back that table!"
Nora shrank before his fierce eyes. She thought his exertions,
his disappointment and the heat had combined to topple him over
into insanity.
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