"Have you seen the babe?"
Margaret replied that he and his nurse were just in sight.
Kitty fled over the lawn to meet the child's perambulator. She lifted
him out, and carried him in her arms towards Margaret and Lady Tranmore.
"Isn't it piteous?" said Margaret, under her breath, as the mother and
child approached. Lady Tranmore gave her a sad, assenting look.
For during the last six months the child had shown signs of brain
mischief--a curious apathy, broken now and then by fits of temper. The
doctors were not encouraging. And Kitty varied between the most
passionate attempts to rouse the child's failing intelligence and
days--even weeks--when she could hardly bring herself to see him at all.
She brought him now to a seat beside Lady Tranmore. She had been trying
to make him take notice of a new toy. But the child looked at her with
blank and glassy eyes, and the toy fell from his hand.
"He hardly knows me," said Kitty, in a low voice of misery, as she
clasped her hands round the baby of three, and looked into his face, as
though she would drag from it some sign of mind and recognition.
But the blue eyes betrayed no glimmer of response, till suddenly, with a
gesture as of infinite fatigue, the child threw itself back against her,
laying its fair head upon her breast with a long sigh.
Pages:
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388