She could not fail to realize that her guests were well-bred, even cultivated people; the stamp of true gentility was upon them, and it was extremely galling to her haughty spirit to feel that they had been weighing her in the balance of their own refined and noble natures, and had found her sadly wanting in all those gentler qualities and attributes which naturally belong to a woman, and especially to a mother.
But she was impatient of all restraint and discomfort. She threw off the feeling with the usual shrug of her shapely shoulders, and raising her handsome head with a haughty air she continued, somewhat imperiously:
“Do you accede to the conditions that I have mentioned; and you, madame?” turning her great dark eyes full upon the gentle but shocked wife.
“Oh, how can you bear to part thus with your little one, the darling whose pulses are throbbing with your own life-blood?” exclaimed sweet Alice Damon, tears starting to her earnest, gray-blue eyes, her delicate lips trembling with emotion.
“That is a question that I cannot allow myself to consider,” responded Mrs. Marston, with a peculiar gesture of her jeweled hands, which might have meant either pain or repugnance, “neither can I enter into any explanation upon that point; the fact remains, I must part with her, and it is my wish to make the best possible provision for her.”
“We should be glad to see the child, madam,” Mr. Damon gravely remarked.
“Of course. I will have her brought in immediately;” and Mrs. Marston arose to ring a bell.
A moment later a portly matron entered the room bearing in her arms a lovely babe about a month old, arrayed in a richly embroidered robe, and wrapped in the softest and whitest of flannels.
Alice Damon uttered an eager cry, in which the tenderest mother-love and the keenest pain were blended, as she caught sight of the beautiful child who recalled so vividly her own lost treasure.
Starting from her seat she glided swiftly over the soft carpet, and the next moment the tiny creature was clasped close to her aching heart, while a sob burst from her as she pressed her quivering lips to its velvet cheek. Then she turned to her husband with it still in her arms.