Part 41 (1/2)
”Will you kiss me?” Betty asked. The kiss was given mutely.
”Will you tell Aunt Betty your name?”
”Ann.”
”Ann what?”
”Jes' lil' Ann.”
Then Betty raised her eyes to Lynda's face and smiled at its tragic suffering.
”Poor, old Lyn!” she said, ”run home to Con. You need him and G.o.d knows he needs you. It will take the big love, Lyn, dear, the big love; but you have it--you have it!”
Without a word Lynda turned and left Betty with the children.
CHAPTER XXI
Potential motherhood can endure throes of travail other than physical; and for the next week Lynda pa.s.sed through all the phases of spiritual readjustment that enabled her, with blessed certainty of success, to accept what she had undertaken.
She did not speak to Truedale at once, but she went daily to Betty's and with amazement watched the miracle Betty was performing. She never forgot the hour, when, going softly up the stairs, she heard little Ann laugh gleefully and clap her hands.
Betty was playing with the baby and telling Ann a story at the same time. Lynda paused to listen.
”And now come here, little Ann, and kiss Bobilink. Isn't he smelly-sweet and wonderful?”
”Yes.”
”That's right. Kiss him again. And you once said you just naturally didn't like babies! Little Ann, you are a humbug. And now tell me how much you like Bobilink.”
”Heaps and lickwigs.”
”Now kiss me, you darling, and come close--so we will not waken Bobbie.
Let me see, this is going to be the story of the little girl who adopted a--mother! Yesterday it was Bobbie's story of how a mother adopted a little boy. You remember, the mother had to have a baby to fill a big empty s.p.a.ce, so she went to a house where some lost kiddies were and found just the one that fitted in and--and--but this is Ann's story to-day!
”Once there was a little girl--a very dear and good little girl--who knew all about a mother, and how dear a mother was; because she had one who was obliged to go away--”
”For a right lil' time?” Ann broke in.
”Of course,” Betty agreed, ”a right little time; but the small girl thought, while she waited, that she would adopt a mother and not tell her about the other one, for fear she might not understand, and she'd teach the adopted mother how to be a real mother. And now one must remember all the things little girls do to--to adopted mothers. First--”
At this point Lynda entered the room, but Betty went on calmly:
”First, what do little girls do, Ann?”
”Teach them how to hold lil' girls.”
”Splendid! What next?”