Sometimes I was sure that her feeding-bottle had not been rinsed and her milk was not quite fresh—but that only gave me the pleasure of scalding the one and boiling the other.
More than once it flashed upon me that I was paying Mrs. Oliver to do all this—but then what a deep delight it was to be mothering my own baby!
Thus weeks and months passed—it is only now I know how many, for in those days Time itself had nothing in it for me except my child—and every new day brought the new joy of watching my baby's development.
Oh, how wonderful it all was! To see her little mind and soul coming out of the Unknown! Out of the silence and darkness of the womb into the world of light and sound!
First her sense of sight, with her never-ending interest in her dear little toes! Then her senses of touch and hearing, and the gift of speech, beginning with a sort of crow, and ending in the "ma-ma-ma" which the first time I heard it went prancing through and through me and was more heavenly to my ears than the music of the spheres!
What evenings of joy I had with her!
The best of them (God forgive me!) were the nights when the bricklayer had got into some trouble by "knocking people about" at the "Rising Sun" and his wife had to go off to rescue him from the police.
Then, baby being "shortened," I would prop her up in her cot while I sang "Sally" to her; or if that did not serve, and her little lip continued to drop, I both sang and danced, spreading my skirts and waltzing to the tune of "Clementina" while the kettle hummed over the fire and the bricklayer's kitchen buzzed softly like a hive of bees.
Oh dear! Oh dear! I may have been down in the depths, yet there is no place so dark that it may not be brightened by a sunbeam, and my sunbeam was my child.
And then Martin—baby was constantly making me think of him. Devouring her with my eyes, I caught resemblances every day—in her eyes, her voice, her smile, and, above all, in that gurgling laugh that was like water bubbling out of a bottle.