But Bessie Bell could not see anything to be afraid of: the band was playing just as gaily as ever, and the children, and the nurses, and the babies, and the parasols were as gay as ever.
"Where is your mama?" asked the lady, taking fast hold of the little hand that patted her hand.
"Everybody has a mama—never mind—"
"But where is your mama?" asked the lady again.
Bessie Bell had begun to wonder and so had forgotten to answer.
"Child, where is your mama?" said the lady again, still holding fast to Bessie Bell's hand.
"But—I don't know," said Bessie Bell.
Then the lady looked as if she had begun to wonder, too, and she seemed to be looking away off; away off, but how closely she held Bessie Bell's hand—closer than Sister Angela, or Sister Theckla, or even Sister Helen Vincula, or Sister Justina—
Then Bessie Bell began to wonder still more, and to remember, as the lady held fast to her little fingers. She began to talk her thinking out loud, and she said: "Yes, there was a window—where everything was green, and, small, and moving—but Sister Justina said there was not any window like that in the whole world—"
The lady held Bessie Bell's hand very hard, and she said—softly, as if she, too, was talking her thinking aloud: