I hesitated. I felt a sense of unreasonable annoyance, almost of fear. "Yes," I said, at last, "let her come in."
Josephine Morgan came in with a soft little feminine rush. Something of the atmosphere of the great world in which she lived came with her as far as the bedside, then dropped from her like a garment as she knelt beside us and kissed me, her eyes on Maria Annunciata's sleeping face.
"Oh, the darling, the lamb!" she breathed. "She's the most exquisite thing I ever saw! And the pluck of her! George says she ought to have a Carnegie medal." Still kneeling, she bent over the child, her beautiful face quivering with feeling. "What do you know about her family?" she asked.
With a gesture I indicated the scrap of paper and the ring that lay on my dressing-table. "There's the whole record," I murmured.
She rose and examined them, standing very still for a moment afterward, apparently in deep thought. Then, still holding them, she returned to the bedside and with a quick but indescribably tender movement gathered Maria Annunciata into her arms. "Let me show her to George," she whispered.
I consented, and she carried the sleeping baby into the next room. I heard their voices and an occasional low laugh. A strange feeling of loneliness settled upon me. In a few moments she came back, her face transfigured. Bending, she put the child in bed and sat down beside her.
"May," she said, quietly, "George and I want her. Will you give her to us?"
The demand was so sudden that I could not speak. She looked at me, her eyes filling.
"We've been looking for a little daughter for two years," she added. "We've visited dozens of institutions."
"But," I stammered, "I wanted to keep her myself—for a while, anyway."