Maria approached the nurse timidly.

The flannel was carefully laid aside, and the small, piteously inquiring and puzzled face, the inquiry and the bewilderment expressed by a thousand wrinkles, was exposed.

Maria looked at it with a sort of shiver.

The nurse laid the flannel apart and disclosed the tiny feet seeming already to kick feebly at existence.

The nurse said something in French which Maria could not understand.