FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   >>  
self." "But--the risk?" "Oh," said Aggie, sublimely, "we all take it. Some of us don't know. I did. That's all." She drew a deep breath of relief and satisfaction. For four months, ever since she had known that some such scene as this must come, she had known that she would meet it this way. "Hush," she said. "I think I hear the children." IX They came in, a pathetic little procession, three golden-haired couples, holding one another's hands. First, Arty and Emmy, then Catty and Baby, then Willie and Dick, all solemn and shy. Baby turned his back on the strange aunt and burrowed into his mother's lap. They were all silent but Dick. Dick wanted to know if his Auntie liked birfdays, and if people gave her fings on her birfday--pausing to simulate a delicate irrelevance before he announced that _his_ birfday was to-morrow. "Dickie, dear," said his mother, nervously, "we don't talk about our birthdays before they've come." She could not bear Susie to be able to say that one of her children had given so gross a hint. The children pressed round her, and her hands were soon at their proud and anxious work: coaxing stray curls into their place; proving the strength of the little arms; slipping a sock, to show the marbled rose of the round limbs. "Just feel Emmy's legs. She's as firm as firm. And look at Baby, how beautifully he's made. They're all healthy. There isn't an unsweet, unsound spot in one of them." [Illustration: "'There isn't an unsweet, unsound spot in one of them'"] "No, no, they look it. They're magnificent. And they're you all over again." "Barbara wasn't. She was the very image of her father." Her love of him conquered the stubborn silence of her grief, so that she did not shrink from the beloved name. "Susie," she said, when the little procession had, at its own petition, filed solemnly out again, "you can't say you've seen too much of them." Susie smiled sadly as she looked at the wreck that was poor Aggie. "No, my dear; but I haven't seen quite enough of you. There isn't much left of you, you know." "Me?" She paused, and then broke out again, triumphant in her justification: "No matter if there's nothing left of me. _They're_ alive." She raised her head. Worn out and broken down she might be, but she was the mother of superb children. Something stronger and more beautiful than her lost youth flamed in her as she vindicated her mother
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   >>  



Top keywords:

children

 

mother

 
unsweet
 

birfday

 

unsound

 

procession

 

silence

 
stubborn
 

conquered

 

shrink


petition

 

relief

 

beloved

 
breath
 
father
 

Illustration

 

healthy

 
beautifully
 

Barbara

 

magnificent


sublimely
 

solemnly

 
broken
 

raised

 

superb

 

flamed

 

vindicated

 

beautiful

 

Something

 
stronger

matter

 

justification

 

smiled

 
looked
 

paused

 
triumphant
 
satisfaction
 

birfdays

 

people

 
Auntie

wanted

 
announced
 
morrow
 

irrelevance

 

delicate

 

pausing

 

simulate

 
silent
 
haired
 

Willie