And though I was but a heedless, foolish child I kept my eyes open and began to look about me.  I took no one into the secret but my brothers, and though my elder brother chid me, and bid me only be thankful to our cousin for all her goodness, I nevertheless began to watch and learn.

There were a number of children at the Stromers’ house—­the Golden Rose was its name—­and they were still happy in having their mother.  She was a very cheerful young woman, as plump as a cherry, and pink and white like blood on snow; and she never fixed her gaze on me as others did, but would frolic with me or scold me sharply when I did any wrong.  At the Muffels, on the contrary, the mistress was dead, and the master had not long after brought home another mother to his little ones, a stepmother, Susan, who was my maid, was wont to call her; and such a mother was no more a real mother than our good cousin—­I knew that much from the fairy tales to which I was ever ready to hearken.  But I saw this very stepmother wash and dress little Elsie, her husband’s youngest babe and not her own, and lull her till she fell asleep; and she did it right tenderly, and quite as she ought.  And then, when the child was asleep she kissed it, too, on its brow and cheeks.

And yet Mistress Stromer, of the Golden-Rose House, did differently; for when she took little Clare that was her own babe out of the water, and laid it on warm clouts on the swaddling board, she buried her face in the sweet, soft flesh, and kissed the whole of its little body all over, before and behind, from head to foot, as if it were all one sweet, rosy mouth; and they both laughed with hearty, loving merriment, as the mother pressed her lips against the babe’s white, clean skin and trumpeted till the room rang, or clasped it, wrapped in napkins to her warm breast, as if she could hug it to death.  And she broke into a loud, strange laugh, and cried as she fondled it:  “My treasure, my darling, my God-sent jewel!  My own, my own—­I could eat thee!”

No, Mistress Muffel never behaved so to Elsie, her husband’s babe.  Notwithstanding I knew right well that Cousin Maud had been just as fond of me as Dame Stromer of her own babes, and so far our cousin was no way different from a real mother.  And I said as much to myself, when I laid me down to sleep in my little white bed at night, and my cousin came and folded her hands as I folded mine and, after we had said the prayers for the Angelus together, as we did every evening, she laid her head by the side of mine, and pressed my baby face to her own big face.  I liked this well enough, and I whispered in her ear:  “Tell me, Cousin Maud, are you not my real, true mother?”