"But she'll want to take her," said Aunt Margret.
"Trust her for that, if she's a mother," said Anna.
"But will it be safe? Is she quite herself again?"
"We'll chance her," said Anna.
Aunt Margret gathered up the baby in its long clothes and with its feeding-bottle at her breast, and carried it into Thora's room, and stooping by the bed she said, "There! Look at that now!"
"Give her to me, give her to me," cried Thora, stretching out two trembling white arms.
"Carefully then, carefully," said Aunt Margret.
There was no need to fear: Thora gathered her child to her breast with the free and daring but gentle touch that comes to mothers of every species.
"My baby! My baby!" she whispered, and her pale face overflowed with joy. "Yes, she is like me. I can see it myself. But why doesn't she open her eyes? Is she asleep? That can not be, because she is still sucking. Coo-coo! Isn't she beautiful? How foolish of me to say that! And yet it's true. Coo! My baby! My bootiful, bootiful baby!"
Through all this broken jargon--the divine foolishness of motherhood--the two older women stood by, trying to cackle and laugh behind their black silk aprons, but finding it hard to keep back their tears.