Day was breaking. Around the dark edges of the lowered shades, livid squares of light were widening against the wall.
With a stealthy gesture, May sunk into the bedclothes again and pulled the cold sheet up to her chin, but her eyes, alive in her pale little face over the edge of the quilt, followed her grandmother's movements covertly.
Mrs. Farley thought she heard a sound from the crib, and went swiftly to it.
May, quivering with eagerness, sat up again. "What's that, Grandmother?"
Mrs. Farley bent lower over the crib. Her voice choked. "That's your new little brother," she said.
May, delighted by the excitement and puzzled and interested by her grandmother's tears, threw the covers away from her, and, clutching the rail at the side of the bed, pulled herself to her naked knees so that she could look. "I want to see, Grandma Farley!" she begged. "I want to get out." She had already slipped one bare leg over the bar and was half way to the floor.
"Get back into bed this instant, May! You'll take cold and wake Bobby too." Mrs. Farley lifted the baby, all wrapped in blankets, and carried it to May's bedside.
Without sympathy, and with the impersonal curiosity of a child, the little girl stared at the baby's small sharp features and dull bluish, unrecognizing eyes. She was accustomed in examining picture books to see fat children with round faces, and she thought it did not resemble a baby.
"Whose is it? Is it Mamma's?" she asked. "Where did she get it? Can I touch it?" She laid a small finger on the bundle, then drew back with a shudder of alienation. "How can you bear to touch it, Grandma?"
Mrs. Farley could not speak. She began to cry again.