"Life ain't cruel, you poor soul! It comes along with both hands full. It says to the little girl, 'Come, drop that doll-baby, I've got something better than that. Here's a lover for you.' And then it says to the girl that's picking and choosing among her beaux, 'Drop that flirting, I've got something better for you. Here's a husband and a home!' And so it goes. Instead of getting poorer all the time, we're getting richer."
She looked at Annabel tentatively. She was not altogether sure that her eloquence was having effect. But as Annabel sat in an attitude of expectancy, her face turned toward her monitor, though her eyes were downcast, Persis tried again.
"I don't say Thomas and I haven't missed a lot, I'm not belittling youth and its love and its hopes. But I do say that I wouldn't change this last year of my life for any that might have been. Why, when I wake up in the morning, my head's full of the children, thinking of 'em and planning for 'em and sometimes worrying about 'em. It needs a little tart taste, sometimes, to bring out the sweet. Thomas and I have spent hours, trying to decide whether we'll make a doctor out of Algie, or a civil engineer, and we know both of us, that when the time comes, he'll take the bit in his teeth and do as he likes. Only it's such fun planning it out. When I look back five years or ten, or twenty, for that matter, and see how my life has filled up and widened out, I feel real sorry for that little, young, silly Persis Dale who thought she was so happy and knew so little about it. If life takes with one hand, Mis' Sinclair, it gives with two, only you'll never find it out as long as you grip tight to what you've got."
She looked down on the bundle in her arms, and again her face was irradiated by a vivid tenderness, almost as if she had been mother of the child.
"Now, here's a case in point, Annabel Sinclair. Right here in my arms is a little lump of joy that ought to fill up your cup of happiness so full that it would spill over. Seems to me if this little mite belonged to me, if I knew my blood was in his veins, this town wouldn't be big enough to hold me. I love my five, dear knows, but there's a hurt in thinking that I'm never going to see the Dale stubbornness cropping out or any of the Hardin ways. But you haven't got that little nagging hurt to take off your joy, like a pinch in a pair of new shoes. It's all along of you that this boy's here."
As if dominated by the stronger will, Annabel's eyes turned toward the bundle. And inwardly praying that this was the moment for her coup d'état, Persis started to her feet.
"I b'lieve that's Thad calling. 'Fraid like as not, that I'm going to kidnap his son and heir. You hold the baby, Mis' Sinclair, till I see what's wanted."
She had tucked the baby into the curve of his grandmother's arm before Annabel could protest, and she left the room without looking back. Annabel, breathing fast, stared down into the little red face against her shoulder. Such a queer little face, wrinkled with the ponderous wisdom of the world it had so lately quitted, placid through ignorance of the new life into which it had entered. She could not turn away her eyes. And this being, newer than the morning paper and yet ancient as man, was flesh of her flesh.
The little, tightly clenched fists attracted her as irresistibly as the face. She surprised herself by poking one tentatively, and when the fingers opened and closed about hers, her lips parted as if to cry out. She had not dreamed that there could be such tenacity in those wee fingers. It was uncanny to be thus gripped by a creature so intensely new. And Persis had said that this was one of Heaven's good gifts, a joy that might brim life's cup over.
The door opened and she raised her eyes. Her husband stood there, gravely intent. She had never looked less beautiful than in her pale disorder, but the pathos of her drooping figure and bewildered face touched him strangely. Or perhaps it was the child in her arms.