"Perhaps I shall die," she said, in the last days of waiting. "You'll see that now, just when we've got a little luck, I shall die."
"Don't talk nonsense," said Antonio, almost angry.
She did not die, but she gave to the light a miserable little being, its life hanging by a thread, a baby like a kitten, ill-formed, ill-coloured, with an enormous head.
When she first saw this little misery she wept with disappointment and repugnance.
"If it would only die!" she mourned, cruelly. "Why oh! why have I given it life!"
"Young lady," she was answered by the nurse, a peasant woman, like a statue, with a bronze face in an aureole formed by a turquoise head ornament, "leave the infant to me. You have brought her into the world, and now you have no more to do. Leave her to me, Signurì."
Regina appeared to have little confidence, so the big woman was offended. She sulked, she quarrelled with the servant, who insisted the baby was dying. Next day she fell out with Marianna, who had come to inquire for Regina, and made the remark that the child seemed a kitten.
"Just let her grow a bit," cried the indignant peasant, "and she'll be clawing at you! Little Miss Catharine may be like a kitten, but you're for all the world like a rat!"
By the middle of May Regina had recovered; she had regained her beauty and felt strong and happy. The nurse kept her promise; her rich country milk gave life and vigour to the poor little city infant. The distorted black little face cleared and acquired a profile; the immense heavy eyes began to be human. Sometimes the baby smiled, and her whole little face became animated. Then Regina felt certain her daughter was beautiful; but presently she laughed and thought she must be deluded—a victim of that mania which attacks all mothers.