Then the lady spoke again, as softly and tenderly as before:
"My children also love your children. Wouldn't it be nice if they could play together!"
Then the lady held the smaller girl in front of her. Very timidly the little girl held out her hand—while her mother looked into the lioness's eyes.
Well, my dear children, I cannot tell how it happened. Perhaps some message of love and sympathy and understanding passed between the two mothers—the mother of the two little girls, and the mother of the two little cubs. At any rate, this is what actually happened:
Very timidly and very slowly the lady stepped to the cage. The little girl put her hand between the bars, and petted the cub nearest to her. The lady moved a little, and the girl petted the other cub. The lioness looked on all the time.
Then something still more wonderful happened. As the little girl was petting the cub, the lioness also began to lick the cub; then the lioness's tongue passed over the cub's body and came to the child's hand—and the lioness began to lick the child's hand as if the child were her own.
Remember that this was a wild lioness, and untamed. Nobody had ever dared before even to come within her reach.
Then the lady turned a little, and brought the other girl to the bars of the cage—and she too petted the cubs. Lastly, the lady put the girls down, and passed her own hand through the bars. She too petted the cubs, then finally she stroked the lioness herself.
And that was like a kind of handshake as a good-bye. They parted friends—like two mothers who had met by chance on the roadside, and each had admired the children of the other.