"No—she never talks to me about my mother. Aunt Maria—that's Mrs. Houston—she's told me lots about her, but Mammy Dicey tells me most."
"Who is Mammy Dicey?"
"Mammy Dicey's my Mamma's slave. She always lived with Mamma ever since before Mamma was born, and now she belongs to me. She tells me all about the time when Mamma was a little girl just like me," her face lit up wonderfully with her evident love of the subject, "and she tells me all the time about the trips she and Mamma used to take to New Orleans, and the years they spent in the Convent down there, and of the long, long trip they once took to the old country. Mammy says they didn't see anything but water for months and months. I wish so—so much I could take a trip like that with Mammy. Then, sometimes, on cold winter nights when we sit in the kitchen and Mammy can see pictures in the fire, I get her to tell me about the times Mamma used to walk here, in the Garden of Shadows, and cry all the time because Father had gone to fight the Indians. I'll get her to tell you sometime, only you mustn't laugh at me when I cry." She stopped, out of breath with the rush of words.
"Why do you cry, Natalia?" Sargent asked gently, when she had rested a moment in silence.
"Oh, I don't know, except," and the tears were already in her eyes. "I can't help wishing she was living when I get very, very lonesome."
"And is that so often in this lovely place?"
"No—not so much. It's just when I get mad with James and Bushnell, and Mammy's busy, and I'm all by myself—like I was this evening. I s'pose every little girl gets that way when she hasn't got a Mamma. Have you got one?"
Sargent put his arm around her and drew the frail little figure close to him. When she had rested her, chin against his arm, and he could feel the quick beating of her heart, he leaned over and kissed the heavy waves of her hair.
"Yes, I have a mother," he answered, almost in a whisper, "but she is nearly as far away from me as yours is. Indeed, I believe she is farther—for you have everything here that was your mother's, and that is a great deal."
For a little while Natalia was silent, then she murmured without looking up, "Is she beautiful like mine—and do you love her very much?"