“Mamma, mamma!” gasped Amabel, in a strange, little, pent voice, which did not sound like a child's. There was something fairly inhuman about it. “Mamma,” as she said it, did not sound like a word in any known language. It was like a cry of universal childhood for its parent. Amabel clung to her mother, not only with her slender little arms, but with her legs and breast and neck; all her slim body became as a vine with tendrils of love and growth around her mother.
As for Eva, she could not have enough of her. She was intoxicated with the possession of this little creature of her own flesh and blood.
“She's grown; she's grown so tall,” she said, in a high, panting voice. It was all she could seem to realize—the fact that the child had grown so tall—and it filled her at once with ineffable pain and delight. She held the little thing so close to her that the two seemed fairly one. “Mamma, mamma!” said Amabel again.
“She has—grown so tall,” panted Eva.
Fanny went up to her and tried gently to loosen her grasp of the little girl. In her heart she was not yet quite sure of her. This fierceness of delight began to alarm her. “Of course she has grown tall, Eva Tenny,” she said. “It's quite a while since you were—taken sick.”
“I ain't sick now,” said Eva, in a steady voice. “I'm cured now. The doctors say so. You needn't be afraid, Fanny Brewster.”
“Mamma, mamma!” said Amabel. Eva bent down and kissed the little, delicate face; then she looked at her sister and at Andrew, and her own countenance seemed fairly illuminated. “I 'ain't told you all,” said she. Then she stopped and hesitated.
“What is it, Eva?” asked Fanny, looking at her with increasing courage. The tears were streaming openly down her cheeks. “Oh, you poor girl, what have you been through?” she said. “What is it?”
“I 'ain't got to go through anything more,” said Eva, still with that rapt look over Amabel's little, fair head. “He's—come back.”
“Eva Tenny!”