"I should like to begin by making that," she suggested. "Do you think that if I bought one for a pattern I could copy it?"
Dowie studied it with care.
"Yes," she said. "You could copy it and make as many more as you liked. They need a good many."
"I am glad of that," said Robin. "I should like to make a great many." The slim fingers slid over the page. "I should like to make that one—and that—and that." Her face, bent over the picture, wore its touching young look thrilled with something new. "They are so pretty—they are so pretty," she murmured like a dove.
"They're the prettiest things in the world," Dowie said. "There never was anything prettier."
"It must be wonderful to make them and to know all the time you are putting in the tiny stitches, that they are for something little—and warm—and alive!"
"Those that have done it never forget it," said Dowie. Robin lifted her face, but her hands still held the book with the touch which clung.
"I am beginning to realise what a strange life mine has been," she said. "Don't you think it has, Dowie? I haven't known things. I didn't know what mothers were. I never knew another child until I met Donal in the Gardens. No one had ever kissed me until he did. When I was older I didn't know anything about love and marrying—really. It seemed only something one read about in books until Donal came. You and Mademoiselle made me happy, but I was like a little nun." She paused a moment and then said thoughtfully, "Do you know, Dowie, I have never touched a baby?"
"I never thought of it before," Dowie answered with a slightly caught breath, "but I believe you never have."
The girl leaned forward and her own light breath came a shade more quickly, and the faint colour on her cheek flickered into a sweeter warm tone.