A cry from Betty, and a convulsive closing of arms about the protector.
"What! already?" said Dodo, with a sigh, coming back unwillingly from a painless world of dreams.
"Past time!"
"Just five minutes more!"
"Dodo!"
"Oh, dear!" she said, with a last protesting hug. "What a dreadful mother you have, Betty! How would you like to change mothers, young lady?"
A giggle of delight and a furious nod of assent.
"I'll be your mother, and you can come and stay here all the day and all the night, and then there'll be nothing but dolls and fairies and good things to eat all the time! What do you say? Will you come and be my little girl forever and ever and ever after?"
She had begun in a light tone, and had insensibly drifted into a tender note, hushed and with a touch of real longing. All at once she looked up, startled. Snyder had snatched the child from her—Snyder as she had never seen her before, towering, with tortured eyes, stung to the quick.
"Why, Snyder!" she began. But the woman turned away quickly, with a murmur, gone before she knew it.