"Oh dear!" said old Anna, with a sigh. "We can't possibly keep it a secret from the mistress always!"
She moaned and groaned and, raising her two arms in the air, drove the cat back to the kitchen, because the passage was full enough as it was: Ina d'Herbourg had arrived with her daughter Lily van Wely and two perambulators; one was pushed by the little mother and the other by the nurse; and Lily and the nurse now shoved the perambulators into the morning-room, where Anna had made up a good fire, to welcome the family; and, while Lily and the nurse were busy, Ina talked to old Anna about the old gentleman's death and Anna said that her mistress had not the least idea of it, but that, after all, that couldn't go on forever....
"Oh, what darlings, what sweet little dots!" said Anna, clasping her hands together. "And how pleased the mistress will be that Mrs. Lily has come to show her the babies! Yes, I'll let the old lady know...."
"Lily," said Ina, "you go first with Stefje; I'll come up afterwards with little Netta."
Lily took the baby out of the perambulator. The child whimpered a bit and crowed a bit; and the dear, flaxen-haired little mother, with her very young little motherly laugh, carried it up the stairs. Anna was holding the door open and the old lady was looking out. She was sitting upright in her high-backed chair, which was like a throne, with the pillow straight behind her back. In the light of the early winter afternoon, which filtered through the muslin blinds past the red curtains and over the plush valance, she seemed frailer than ever; and her face, brightened with a smile of expectation, was like a piece of lined white porcelain, but so vaguely seen under the even, hard-black, just-suggested line of the wig and the little lace cap that she did not seem to belong to the world of living things. The ample black dress fell in supple lines and hid her entirely in shadow-folds with streaks of brighter light; and, now that Lily entered with the baby, the old woman lifted from her deep lap her trembling, mittened hands, with fingers like slender wands, lifted them into a stiff and difficult gesture of caress and welcome. Long cracked sounded the voice, still round and mellow with its Indian accent:
"Well, child, that's a nice idea of yours, to bring the little boy at last.... That's a nice idea.... That's a nice idea.... Yes, let me have a look at him.... Oh, what a sweet baby!"
Lily, to let Great-great-grandmother see the baby well, had knelt down on a hassock and was holding up the baby, which shrank back, a little startled at the brittle, wrinkled face that made such an uncanny patch in the crimson dusk; but its little mother was able to hush it and it did not cry, only stared.
"Yes, Greatgranny," said Lily, "this is your great-great-grandchild."
"Yes, yes," said the old woman, with her hands still trembling in the air, in a vague gesture of hesitating caress, "I'm a great-great-grandmamma.... Yes, little boy, yes.... I'm your great-great-grandmother...."
"And Netta's downstairs: I brought her too."