It was a lullaby I had learned at Nemi from the Italian women in embroidered outside stays, who so love their children; and though I knew quite well that it had been written for the Mother of all Mothers, who, after she had been turned away from every door, had been forced to take refuge in a stable in Bethlehem, I was in such an ecstasy of spiritual happiness that I thought it no irreverence to change it a little and to sing it in my London lodging to my human child.
"Sleep, little baby, I love thee, I love thee,
Sleep, little Queen, I am bending above thee."
I dare say my voice was sweet that day—a mother's voice is always sweet—for when Emmerjane, who had been out of the room, came back to it with a look of awed solemnity, she said:
"Well, I never did! I thought as 'ow there was a' angel a-come into this room."
"So there is, and here she is," I said, beaming down on my sleeping child.
But the long, short, blissful day came to an end at last, and when night fell and I dropped asleep, there were two names of my dear ones on my lips, and if one of them was the name of him who (as I thought) was in heaven, the other was the name of her who was now lying in my arms.
I may have been poor, but I felt like a queen with all the riches of life in my little room.
I may have sinned against the world and the Church, but I felt as if God had justified me by His own triumphant law.
The whole feminine soul in me seemed to swell and throb, and with my baby at my breast I wanted no more of earth or heaven.
I was still bleeding from the bruises of Fate, but I felt healed of all my wounds, loaded with benefits, crowned with rewards.