Oscar promised, and then followed his mother into Thora's bedroom. At the threshold he heard the soft "Boo-oo--coo-coo" of motherly endearment, and then saw the shining pale face on the pillow with the tiny red one below it.
"My poor Thora," he said, kissing her forehead, "you are not suffering now, are you? A little pale, perhaps, and a little thin, but better, are you not?"
"Look!" she whispered, uncovering the child and having no thoughts to waste on lesser matters. "Who is she like, Oscar?"
"Like? Do you ask me who she's like, Thora? Why, she's like--ridiculously like you!"
"Kiss me, Oscar. Put your arms around both of us, dearest. That way--so."
But at the next moment the baby was crying and the older women were protesting loudly.
"Come away you great, clumsy creature," said Aunt Margret.
"No, no," cried Thora. "It wasn't Oscar. He never hurts anybody. It was I, auntie," but auntie, making no terms with such heroics, took the child out of bed and proceeded to rock it, face downward, across her knee.
When the baby had been hushed to sleep they fell to the discussion of its name. Oscar was for "Thora," but Thora herself said no, that was her own name, the name Oscar knew her by, and therefore she could not share it even with her child.
"Then what do you say to 'Elin'?" said Oscar.