It seemed to her as though this must surely be her place for the present--amongst these helpless little ones to whom Providence had sent her in the hour of their extreme necessity.
The baby was sleeping in her arms.

She looked down into its tiny face, and wondered if it would be possible that its life could be saved.

For a whole night it had lain at its dead mother's side.
Could it have escaped the contagion?
The three older children appeared well, and even grew merry as the hours wore slowly away.
From time to time Gertrude looked out into the street, but there was nothing to be seen save the men on guard; and only from time to time was the silence broken by the cry of some delirious patient, or a shriek for mercy from some half-demented woman driven frantic by the terrors by which she was surrounded.
When afternoon came, she prepared more food for the children, and partook of it with them, and wondered how and where she should spend the night.

The infant in her arms had grown strangely still and quiet.

It could not be roused, and breathed slowly and heavily.
"Harry looked just like that before he went to sleep," said the eldest of the children, coming and peeping into the small waxen face; and Gertrude gave a little involuntary shiver as she thought of the four still forms lying sleeping upstairs, and wondered whether this would make a fifth for the bearers to carry forth at night.
Just as the dusk began to fall, there came the sound of a slight parley without.