“Show almost human intelligence, don't they?” said their father, as he lay flat on his back and permitted the babies to climb over him.
“Ya-as,” drawled the major. “They do. Don't see how you account for it, Jack.”
Jack roared, and the lips of the babies trembled with fear.
Their mother said nothing. She was on the sofa, her hands lying inert, her eyes fixed on her rosy babies with an expression which her father-in-law and her husband tried hard not to notice.
It was not easy to tell why Kate was ailing. Of course, the babies were young, but there were other reasons.
“I believe you're too happy,” Jack sometimes said to her. “Try not to be quite so happy, Kate. At least, try not to take your happiness so seriously. Please don't adore me so; I'm only a commonplace fellow. And the babies—they're not going to blow away.”
But Kate continued to look with intense eyes at her little world, and to draw into it with loving and generous hands all who were willing to come.
“Kate is just like a kite,” Jack explained to his father, the major; “she can't keep afloat without just so many bobs.”
Kate's “bobs” were the unfortunates she collected around her. These absorbed her strength. She felt their misery with sympathies that were abnormal. The very laborer in the streets felt his toil less keenly than she, as she watched the drops gather on his brow.
“Is life worth keeping at the cost of a lot like that?” she would ask. She felt ashamed of her own ease. She apologized for her own serene and perfect happiness. She even felt sorry for those mothers who had not children as radiantly beautiful as her own.