“Marilla, would I do?”
She raised her head and looked at him out of longing, pleading eyes that turned joyous like a sudden glowing sunrise.
“Oh!” she cried, “Oh!”
But the wonderful satisfying intonation would have moved any heart.
“And I want a little girl,” he continued. “I shall never have one of my very own;”—it is the way a man thinks when he knows he cannot have the woman he would choose for the mother of his children.
She was silent. He saw the shining tears beading the curly lashes. She was sorry for him. 282
“And if you could be my little girl—”
“Oh, if I might!” and the longing freighted her tone. “If I could be good enough—if I could love you enough. Oh, I would try. I should be so happy. To have a father of one’s own!”
“Children are sometimes adopted.”
“Yes, they were at Bethany Home, but they had to be very pretty, I’m not—very.”