Whatever she felt, her husband must have felt and known that this was the critical moment which, once let slip, might take years afterward to recall.  He said, nervously enough, but with a firmness that showed he must already have well considered the subject,

“Call her mamma.”

There was no reply.  Christian herself was somewhat startled, but conscious of a pleasant thrill at the sound of the new name, coming upon her so suddenly.  Strange it was; and ah! how differently it came to her from the way it comes upon most women—­gradually, deliciously, with long looking forward and tremulous hope and fear—­still it was pleasant.  The maternal instinct was so strong that even imaginary motherhood seemed sweet.  She bent forward to embrace the children, with tears in her eyes, when Letitia said, in a sharp, unchildlike voice,

“People can’t have two mammas; and our mamma is buried in the New Cemetery.  Aunts took us there yesterday afternoon.”

Had the little girl chosen the sharpest arrow in her aunts’ quiver—­nay, bad she been Miss Gascoigne herself, she could not have shot more keenly home.  For the dart was barbed with truth—­literal truth; which, however, sore it be, people in many difficult circumstances of life are obliged to face, to recognize, and abide by—­to soften and subdue if they can—­but woe betide them if by any cowardly weakness or shortsighted selfishness, they are tempted to deny it as truth, or to overlook and make light of it.

Painful as the position was—­so painful that Dr. Grey was quite overcome by it, and maintained a total silence—­Christian had yet the sense to see that it was a position inevitable, because it was true.  Bitterly as the child had spoken—­with the bitterness which she had been taught—­yet she had only uttered a fact.  In one sense, nobody could have two mothers; and Christian, almost with contrition, thought of the poor dead woman whose children were now taught to call another woman by that sacred name.  But the pang passed.  Had she known the first Mrs. Grey, it might not have been so sharp; in any case, here was she herself—­Dr. Grey’s wife and the natural guardian of his children.  Nothing could alter that fact.  Her lot was cast; her duty was clear before her; she must accept it and bear it, whatever it might be perhaps, for some reasons, it was the better for her that it was rather hard.

She looked at her husband, saw how agitated he was, and there seemed to come into her mind a sort of inspiration.

“My child,” she said, trying to draw Letitia toward her, “you say truly.  I am not your own mamma; no one ever could be that to you again; but I mean to be as like her as I can.  I mean to love you and take care of you; and you will love me too by-and-by.  You can always talk to me as much as ever you like about your own mamma.”

“She doesn’t remember her one bit,” said Arthur, contemptuously.