She could talk a little, in disconnected sentences, with fascinating mistakes in the sounds of letters, but she preferred a gurgle of laughter when she was pleased, and a wail of woe when things went wrong.  She was still in the limbos of primitivism.  She was young with the babyhood of the world.  To-day she danced up to her father with her little thrill of laughter, at once as meaningless and as full of meaning as the trill of a canary.  She pursed up her little lips for a kiss, she flung frantic arms of adoration around his neck.  She clung to him, when he lifted her, with all her little embracing limbs; she pressed her lovely, cool, rosy cheek against his, and laughed again.

“Now go and kiss mamma,” said Harry.

But the baby resisted with a little, petulant murmur when he tried to set her down.  She still clung to him.  Harry whispered in her ear.

“Go and kiss mamma, darling.”

But Evelyn shook her head emphatically against his face.  Maria, almost as radiant in her youth as the child, stood behind her.  She glanced uneasily at Ida.  She held the white fur robes and wraps which she had brought in from the sledge.

“Take those things out and let Emma put them away, dear,” Ida said to her.  She smiled, but her voice still retained its involuntary harshness.

Maria obeyed with an uneasy glance at little Evelyn.  She knew that her step-mother was angry because the baby would not kiss her.  When she was out in the dining-room, giving the fluffy white things to the maid, she heard a shriek, half of grief, half of angry dissent, from the baby.  She immediately ran back into the parlor.  Ida was removing the child’s outer garments, smiling as ever, and with seeming gentleness, but Maria had a conviction that her touch on the tender flesh of the child was as the touch of steel.  Little Evelyn struggled to get to her sister when she saw her, but Ida held her firmly.

“Stand still, darling,” she said.  It was inconceivable how she could say darling without the loving inflection which alone gave the word its full meaning.

“Stand still and let mamma take off baby’s things,” said Harry, and there was no lack of affectionate cadences in his voice.  He privately thought that he himself could have taken off the child’s wraps better than his wife, but he recognized her rights in the matter.  Harry remembering his first wife, with her child, was in a state of constant bewilderment at the sight of his second with hers.  He had always had the masculine opinion that women, in certain primeval respects, were cut on one pattern, and his opinion was being rudely shaken.

“Call Emma, please,” said Ida to Maria, and Maria obeyed.

When the maid came in, Ida directed her to take the child up-stairs and put on another frock.

Maria was about to follow, but Harry stopped her.  “Maria,” said he.

Maria stopped, and eyed her father with surprise.