She tried to find comfort in Mrs. Reynolds' joy. "I am your little girl, aren't I?" she asked softly, calling valiantly on her sense of justice.
Mrs. Reynolds looked searchingly into Suzanna's face. With no child of her own, she was still a mother-at-heart. She was full of understanding.
"As much, my own lassie," she answered, "as any other woman's child can be. You see," she went on after a pause, "there's a bond 'tween mother and child that can't ever be broke."
"But I adopted myself out to you," said Suzanna, though her heart was beating with hope.
"Yes, you did," admitted Mrs. Reynolds; "but you didn't at that break the tie that binds you to your own mother. You could never do that, Suzanna, lassie."
As Suzanna looked up into the kind face, new thoughts came surging to her. She couldn't separate them, couldn't arrange them. They all jumbled together, like vivid picture impressions, full of color and feeling. One thought at length cleared itself, stood out.
Love and the chain binding you to those you loved was the biggest thing in the world.
So she told Mrs. Reynolds about Drusilla's chain. And Mrs. Reynolds, greatly impressed, said: "Yes, it's a blessed thread that holds us together. Reynolds calls it the 'sense of brotherhood.'" Her voice lowered itself: "He's a Socialist, Reynolds is, Suzanna." There was pride and fear mixed with a little condemnation in her voice.
"A Socialist—it's a nice word, isn't it?" said Suzanna, settling more comfortably into the hollow of Mrs. Reynolds' arm.
"And I'm going to see Drusilla, as you call her," said Mrs. Reynolds, "and take her some of my crab jelly. I've seen her many's the time sitting out in the yard with naught but a trained maid by her. Poor, poor old soul, with a rich daughter-in-law."