“I am afraid, Betty,” said he—“that a mother’s disparagements are but veiled praise.”
He held her hand in his.
They sat so for a long while.
As he gazed down upon the little one, it came to him that his mother had so looked down upon him, with a mighty hunger at her heart—that his every pain had been a pain to her—his every smile a smile in her heart. And what had he given in return? He felt now the desolation it must have wrought in the silent mother’s heart when he eagerly left the house and sallied forth to his cubhood, unrealizing that his empty place echoed with the sound of a dead child’s laughter and the merriment of the days of his innocence.
Would this little one so discard him—and Betty?
Thus, in this cradle was the beginning of that open confidence between him and his mother that lit their love from that time. The grandchild leads the wandering feet home again.
The tears welled into Noll’s eyes, and his lip trembled.
Betty stroked his hand:
“Hush, Noll—I have wanted you. That is enough, isn’t it?” He bowed his head.
“Noll,” said Betty—“thou wilt be kind to her.... If she lose me she has only you.” And she added after awhile: “The child whose spirit is broken cannot be of the Masterfolk.”