Mary, returning along the silent street from Mrs. Watts's cottage, was asking herself, miserably, "Why did he snub me? What's the matter? Why did he go away like that?"
Back in the Wold Farm, she scolded Violet with quite unnecessary rancour, because the coffee was cold.
Chapter XI
A DEFINITION OF FELICITY
April came and brought to Ursula a fine pink boy, whose body, bundled in rolls of shawl, squirmed deliciously in Mary's arms as she cuddled him in a sunny room of the Hardrascliffe nursing-home. Ursula lay on a sofa near the window regarding her offspring with amused satisfaction. Her pale blue gown and lacy cap, and the light rug across her knees mingled so admirably daintiness with discretion, that Mary thought she looked more like an advertisement for somebody's invalid wine than a woman who had recently emerged from the disturbing crisis of motherhood.
The baby roused from a light doze and turned, whimpering a little, in Mary's arms.
"Poor little Thomas! You've woken him up, Mary. I'm sure you're not holding him right. Give him to me. You're crushing his feet or something."
Mary had been gazing dreamily through the window at the circling flight of gulls above the sunlit garden.
"He's all right," she said, rocking Thomas softly with practised hands. "But take him if you like. Hush, little love! Diddums, diddums! Did your old aunt then squeeze your little tootsies?"