“I’ve forgotten. Go on with your remembering. The other name will come back after a while.”
Adee’s heart jumped even as she spoke. Perhaps the child could remember enough that some trace of her people could be found. There was no joy to Eliza in this thought. Beth gone! Her limbs grew cold and her heart felt like ice in her breast at the mere thought of it.
“Was it a pretty room, Beth, where you slept?”
“Of course, Adee. There were curtains around the bed. It was shiny and yellow—the bed. You hadn’t any carpets on the floor. It was pretty, all right, but not one bit like where I sleep now. Did you give my little bed away, Adee?”
“You must not ask impertinent questions,” said Eliza with what lightness she could muster. “You are such a big girl now. Surely you would not wish to sleep in a little baby-crib.”
“No, but it would be nice for my dolls,” said Beth. “If we had it ready, we might get a live baby to put in it sometime.”
“Now we’ll build a gray stone mansion,” said Helen.
Eliza took her stitches slowly. Beth must be dreaming. Surely, the woman in gowns with long trains and fluffy, fussy hair in which flowers were fastened were tricks of the child’s imagination. Eliza had a picture in her mind of the big, fair woman, shabbily dressed, whom she had found along the roadside. This woman’s hair had been braided and coiled tight about her head. It had been beautiful, but it was not fussy, and it was straight as hair could be.
It was a question in Eliza’s mind, whether she should change the subject, or whether it would be wiser to encourage the child in these remembrances or fits of fancy, whichever they were. She concluded that anything was better than uncertainty.