Lily, instead of answering, rose with a smile and held out her arms; and the mother, understanding the gesture, laid her child in them.
The baby, feeling herself detached from her habitual anchorage, made an instinctive motion of resistance; but the soothing influences of digestion prevailed, and Lily felt the soft weight sink trustfully against her breast. The child’s confidence in its safety thrilled her with a sense of warmth and returning life, and she bent over, wondering at the rosy blur of the little face, the empty clearness of the eyes, the vague tendrilly motions of the folding and unfolding fingers. At first the burden in her arms seemed as light as a pink cloud or a heap of down, but as she continued to hold it the weight increased, sinking deeper, and penetrating her with a strange sense of weakness, as though the child entered into her and became a part of herself.
She looked up, and saw Nettie’s eyes resting on her with tenderness and exultation.
“Wouldn’t it be too lovely for anything if she could grow up to be just like you? Of course I know she never COULD—but mothers are always dreaming the craziest things for their children.”
Lily clasped the child close for a moment and laid her back in her mother’s arms.
“Oh, she must not do that—I should be afraid to come and see her too often!” she said with a smile; and then, resisting Mrs. Struther’s anxious offer of companionship, and reiterating the promise that of course she would come back soon, and make George’s acquaintance, and see the baby in her bath, she passed out of the kitchen and went alone down the tenement stairs.
As she reached the street she realized that she felt stronger and happier: the little episode had done her good. It was the first time she had ever come across the results of her spasmodic benevolence, and the surprised sense of human fellowship took the mortal chill from her heart.
It was not till she entered her own door that she felt the reaction of a deeper loneliness. It was long after seven o’clock, and the light and odours proceeding from the basement made it manifest that the boarding-house dinner had begun. She hastened up to her room, lit the gas, and began to dress. She did not mean to pamper herself any longer, to go without food because her surroundings made it unpalatable. Since it was her fate to live in a boarding-house, she must learn to fall in with the conditions of the life. Nevertheless she was glad that, when she descended to the heat and glare of the dining-room, the repast was nearly over.