Fanny tenderly strained it to her heaving breast, and kissed the face of the sleeping child, who at every kiss opened its dark-blue eyes, and then drooped them and went on sleeping again.
The mother put it back on Flora's breast, and, pressing the lady's hand, whispered to her-- "Be a mother to my child." Flora could not reply, but she nodded her head.

Not a sound would come to her lips, and she turned her head aside, lest the dying woman should see the tears in her eyes.
Then Fanny folded her hands together on her breast, and murmured the single prayer which she had been taught to say in her childhood-- "O God, my God, be merciful to me, poor sinful girl, now and for evermore.

Amen." Then she cast down her eyes gently, and fell asleep.
"She has gone to sleep," murmured the husband, softly.
"She is dead," faltered the doctor, with a look of pity.
And the good old Nabob fell down on his knees beside the bed, and, burying his head in the dead woman's pillows, sobbed bitterly, oh, so bitterly!.