"Did you make the coffee?" asked Kyllikki, smiling in wonder.
"And who else should do it on such a day? Here!"
And they sat down to table, without a word.
* * * * *
Presently the child began to whimper. Both rose to their feet.
"What's the matter, then—did it hurt?" said Kyllikki tenderly. She lifted the little one in her arms, and began talking to him with her eyes, and smiling, with delicious little movements of her head.
The child began to laugh.
Without a word, she laid him in Olof's arms. He thanked her with a look, and held the boy close to his breast. All else seemed to have vanished but this one thing. And he felt the warmth of the little body gradually spreading through clothes and wrappings to his own … it was like a gentle, soft caress. It thrilled him—and the arms that held the little burden trembled; he could not speak, but handed it back in silence to the mother.
She laid it in the cradle, set the pillow aright, and pulled up the coverlet, leaving only a little face showing above.
"It is a great trust, to be given such a little life to care for," said Olof, with a quiver in his voice, as they sat down on the sofa. "It seems too great a thing to be possible, somehow."