"Uncle Felix. He says they always make him think of this place. Mammy Dicey says Mamma used to call this 'The Garden of Shadows.'"
"The Garden of Shadows," Sargent repeated. "What a beautiful name; but it's rather sad, don't you think?"
"Mammy Dicey says Mamma was always sad."
"And don't you remember her yourself?"
The little head moved from side to side and a wistful expression crept into her eyes. "No—I don't remember her—I was too little, I s'pose. Sometimes, though, when there's nobody in the house, I go and sit in the parlour and look at her picture and play like I'm talking to her. Mammy Dicey says she was beautiful—her picture is."
Sargent looked down at her tenderly. Something in the plaintive notes in her voice appealed to him strangely. Her vivid little face, with the deep expression of her eyes, drew him toward her with the instinctive feeling that in some way they were to be very close together in the years that were to come. The beautiful surroundings, with their old-world charm, and aloofness from the world, seemed a part of the child; unconsciously he felt that she was the expression of all that it had stood for—of all its strange beauty.
"You are like your mother—aren't you?" he said, his look still upon her.
She turned away quickly and looked straight before her. "Father used to say so—that is why he named me 'Natalia'—for her. Now, please don't call me 'Natalia' like so many people do. It's Nataaya—that's the way my mother said it—that's the Spanish pronunciation."
"Very well, then, I shall call you Nataaya," Sargent repeated after her. "You seem to know a great deal about your mother, not to remember her. Does Mrs. Brandon talk to you so much about her?"
Natalia looked up, startled.