She felt too weak to trust herself to the stairway and asked RoBards to bring Aletta up. She waited in that great terror in which a mother meets a strange daughter-in-law. But when the girl came into the room, so meek, so pale, so expectant of one more flogging from life, Patty, who would have met defiance with defiance, set forth a hand of welcome and drawing the girl close, kissed her.
There were many embarrassing things to say on either side, but before the parley could begin, the baby intervened with the primeval cry for milk. There was no talking in such uproar and Aletta, noting that RoBards was too stupid to retreat, turned her back on him and, laying the child across her left arm, soon had its anger changed to the first primeval sound of approval.
After a while of pride at the vigorous notes of smacking and gulping, Patty murmured:
“What’s its name?”
“She has no name but Baby,” Aletta sighed. “I have been so alone, with nobody to advise me that I—I didn’t know what to call her.”
Patty hardly hesitated before she said with a hypocritical modesty:
“I don’t think much of ‘Patty’ for a name but Mist’ RoBards used to like it.”
Aletta gasped: “Oh, would you let my baby have your name?”
“Your baby is too beautiful for a name I’ve worn out. But how would you like to call her by the name that was my last name when I was a girl like you? ‘Jessamine’ is right pretty, don’t you think?”
“Jessamine RoBards!” Aletta sighed in a luxury, and added with a quaint bookishness. “It’s another term for Jasmine. I had a little jasmine plant at home. Oh, but it was sweet, and fragrant! My poor mother always said it was her favorite perfume. She used almost to smile when it was in bloom.”