The following simple narrative is founded on fact. A young village
couple married, and soon after their marriage went to live in London.
Success did not follow the honest-hearted husband in his search for
employment, and he and his young wife were reduced to actual want. In
their wretchedness a child was born to them, which died in the midst of
the desolate circumstances by which the young mother was surrounded.
For three years the mother was deprived of reason--a gloomy period of
Death in Life--and passionately mourned the loss of her first-born. An
eminent London practitioner, to whom her case became known, was of
opinion that reason would return should a second child be born to the
disconsolate mother. This proved to be correct; and after three years
of mental aberration the sufferer woke as from a dream. For many
months after the awakening she was under the impression that her second
child was her first-born, and only became aware of the true state of
the case when it was gently broken to her by her husband.