Then the weary eyes of the child turned to him.
"Mommy-Lyn does love me!" the weak voice was barely audible; "she does,
father, she does!"
It was like a confirmation--a recognition of something beautiful and
sacred.
"I felt," Lynda said afterward to Betty, "as if she were not only
telling Con, but God, too. I had not deserved it--but it made up for all
the hard struggle, and swept everything before it."
But Ann did not die. Slowly, almost hesitatingly, she turned back to
them and brought a new power with her. She, apparently, left her baby
looks and nature in the shadowy place from which she had escaped. Once
health came to her, she was the merriest of merry children--almost noisy
at times--in the rollicking fashion of Betty's irrepressible Bobilink.
And the haunting likeness to Truedale was gone. For a year or two the
lean, thready little girl looked like no one but her own elfish self;
and then--it was like a revealment--she grew to be like Nella-Rose!
Lynda, at times, was breathless as she looked and remembered. She had
seen the mother only once; but that hour had burned the image of face,
form, and action into her soul. She recalled, too, Conning's graphic
description of his first meeting with Nella-Rose. The quaint, dramatic
power that had marked Ann's mother, now developed in the little
daughter. She had almost entirely lost the lingering manner of
speech--the Southern expressions and words--but she was as different
from the children with whom she mingled as she had ever been.
Pages:
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299