“Don’t, Betty! Don’t suggest pedestals again,” Lynda pleaded.
“No pedestal, Lyn; no pedestal—but the real, splendid you revealed at last! And now—forget it, dear. Here comes lil’ Ann.”
The child tiptoed in with outstretched arms.
“The nest is made right soft,” she whispered, “and now let me carry Bobilink to—to the sleepy dreams.”
“Where did you learn to carry babies?” Betty hazarded, testing the silence. The small, dark face clouded; the fear-look crept to the large eyes.
“I—I don’t know,” was the only reply, and Ann turned away—this time toward Lynda!
“And suppose he never knows?” Lynda spoke with her lips pressed to Ann’s soft hair—the child was in her arms.
“Then you and Con will have something to begin heaven with.” Betty’s eyes were wet. “We all have something we don’t talk about much on earth—we do not dare. Brace and I have our—baby!”
Two days later Lynda took Ann home. They went shopping first and the child was dazzlingly excited. She forgot her restraint and shyness in the fascinating delirium of telling what she wanted with a pretty sure belief that she would get it. No wonder that she was taken out of herself and broke upon Truedale’s astonished gaze as quite a different child from the one Lynda had described.
The brilliant little thing came into the hall with Lynda, her arms filled with packages too precious to be consigned to other hands; her eyes were dancing and her voice thrilling with happiness.