Cranford

And when Phœbe was coming, I said to my husband, ‘Sam, when the child is born, and I am strong, I shall leave you; it will cut my heart cruel; but if this baby dies too, I shall go mad; the madness is in me now; but if you let me go down to Calcutta, carrying my baby step by step, it will, maybe, work itself off; and I will save, and I will hoard, and I will beg— and I will die, to get a passage home to England, where our baby may live?’ God bless him! he said I might go; and he saved up his pay, and I saved every pice I could get for washing or any way; and when Phœbe came, and I grew strong again, I set off. It was very lonely; through the thick forests, dark again with their heavy trees— along by the river’s side (but I had been brought up near the Avon in Warwickshire, so that flowing noise sounded like home)— from station to station, from Indian village to village, I went along, carrying my child. I had seen one of the officer’s ladies with a little picture, ma’am— done by a Catholic foreigner, ma’am— of the Virgin and the little Saviour, ma’am. She had him on her arm, and her form was softly curled round him, and their cheeks touched.