“Mammie seep? Mardie want a mammie. Mammie come a Mardie, come a Mardie!”
She ran to the door of the room and tried to reach the handle. Lady Coningham picked her up.
“If Mardie will be a very good little girl, she shall have some goodies—such pretty goodies. See, here comes Mardie’s bath! She is going to be such a clean little girl.”
Mardie sat still, but her small hands were clasped together, and her little chest heaved with sobs. Then, as the bath was put before the fire, and, looking from one to the other, she could see nowhere the sweet, tender face that had smiled on her every day of her young recollection, she burst into a tempest of tears, and, struggling from Lady Coningham’s hold, ran wildly round the room in a paroxysm of fear, calling for her “mammie.”
For several minutes their coaxing tenderness was in vain; but after a while the maid succeeded in attracting her attention with a gaudily-painted sugar parrot, which she had purchased at a confectioner’s shop near by. The tears were all spent, nothing but sobs remained, and the parrot came as a welcome bright spot in her small world of grief.
“Pitty—pitty,” she murmured, clasping it to her breast and hugging it. Then she grew so sleepy that she was scarcely conscious of their hands removing her clothes, and her head drooped like a tired flower as they put on a nightgown borrowed from the landlady. She needed no lullaby to coax her to slumber now, and was lost in dreamland as the maid carried her gently into the bedroom.
Lady Coningham stood and gazed, as if held by some magnetic power, at the tiny face pressing the pillow, at the clusters of red-gold curls falling in such rich profusion around it. She was lost in the memory of the brief joy that had come to her only two short years before, and lived once again in the unspeakable happiness of motherhood.
The sound of a deep voice broke her musings, and, stealing softly from the bed, she entered the sitting-room and gave her hand to Dr. Scott.
“What news?” she asked, hurriedly.
Dr. Scott handed her a telegram, then seated himself by the table, leaning his head on his hand.