"
The char-woman came down stairs majestically, in a long, loose
wrapper, fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan, but when she saw the
child, her majesty dropped from her like a cloak, and she ran toward
her and caught the baby up in her arms. "You poor little thing," she
murmured, "and, oh, how beautiful!" Then she whirled about on the men
of the reserve squad: "You, Conners," she said, "run up to my room and
get the milk out of my ice-chest; and Moore, put on your coat and go
around and tell the surgeon I want to see him. And one of you crack
some ice up fine in a towel. Take it out of the cooler. Quick, now."
Raegen came up to her fearfully. "Is she very sick?" he begged; "she
ain't going to die, is she?"
"Of course not," said the woman, promptly, "but she's down with the
heat, and she hasn't been properly cared for; the child looks half-
starved. Are you her father?" she asked, sharply. But Rags did not
speak, for at the moment she had answered his question and had said
the baby would not die, he had reached out swiftly, and taken the
child out of her arms and held it hard against his breast, as though
he had lost her and some one had been just giving her back to him.
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