I stepped out of my berth and approached the young woman in order to look at the child. She turned her head, and, seeing me, grew grave, and stared, whilst the baby instantly ceased to laugh, and rounded its mouth and eyes at me.
‘That is a dear little child,’ said I. ‘What a sweet rippling laugh it has? Is it a boy or girl?’
‘A girl,’ answered the young woman, with a little suggestion of recoil in her posture, as though I was an object she could not at once make sure of.
‘May I kiss her?’
She held the baby up, and I kissed its cheek. She was a golden-haired child of seven or eight months, with large dark eyes. She did not cry when I kissed her.
‘She is a fine child—a beautiful child!’ said I. ‘Are you the mother?’
‘No, I am the sister of the mother,’ answered the young woman, beginning to speak as though her doubts of me were leaving her. ‘Aren’t you the lady the sailors rescued yesterday?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘How glad I am you were saved!’
She had a bonnie face, and I looked at her and smiled, and said, ‘May I nurse baby for a minute?’