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“The baby!” she screamed in a high, hysterical voice. “The baby! The baby—-!”

Blanche Devine shut the door and shook the Young Wife smartly by the shoulders.

“Stop screaming,” she said quietly. “Is she sick?”

The Young Wife told her, her teeth chattering:

“Come quick! She’s dying! Will’s out of town. I tried to get the doctor. The telephone wouldn’t—- I saw your light! For God’s sake—-“

Blanche Devine grasped the Young Wife’s arm, opened the door, and together they sped across the little space that separated the two houses. Blanche Devine was a big woman, but she took the stairs like a girl and found the right bedroom by some miraculous woman instinct. A dreadful choking, rattling sound was coming from Snooky’s bed.

“Croup,” said Blanche Devine, and began her fight.

It was a good fight. She marshaled her inadequate forces, made up of the half-fainting Young Wife and the terrified and awkward hired girl.

“Get the hot water on–lots of it!” Blanche Devine pinned up her 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 proprietary eye. She wondered about Snooky; but she knew better than to ask. So she waited. The Young Wife next door had told her husband all about that awful night–had told him with tears and sobs. The Very Young Husband had been very, very angry with her– angry, he said, and astonished! Snooky could not have been so sick! Look at her now! As well as ever. And to have called such a woman! Well, he did not want to be harsh; but she must understand that she must never speak to the woman again. Never!