“Perfectly glorious!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, I’m so happy—­so happy as I never dreamed!  I’ve no words to tell you about it.”

“You don’t need any words—­I’ve been through it,” I said.

“Oh, but she’s so beautiful! Tell me, honestly, isn’t that really so?”

“My dear,” I said, “she is like you.”

“Mary,” she went on, half whispering, “I think it solves all my problems—­all that I wrote you about.  I don’t believe I shall ever be unhappy again.  I can’t believe that such a thing has really happened—­that I’ve been given such a treasure.  And she’s my own!  I can watch her little body grow and help to make it strong and beautiful!  I can help mould her little mind—­see it opening up, one chamber of wonder after another!  I can teach her all the things I have had to grope so to get!”

“Yes,” I said, trying to speak with conviction.  I added, hastily:  “I’m glad you don’t find motherhood disappointing.”

“Oh, it’s a miracle!” she exclaimed.  “A woman who could be dissatisfied with anything afterwards would be an ingrate!” She paused, then added:  “Mary, now she’s here in flesh, I feel she’ll be a bond between Douglas and me.  He must see her rights, her claim upon life, as he couldn’t see mine.”

I assented gravely.  So that was the thing she was thinking most about—­a bond between her husband and herself!  A moment later the nurse appeared in the doorway, and Sylvia set up a cry:  “My baby!  Where’s my baby?  I want to see my baby!”

“Sylvia, dear,” I said, “there’s something about the baby that has to be explained.”

Instantly she was alert.  “What is the matter?”

I laughed.  “Nothing, dear, that amounts to anything.  But the little one’s eyes are inflamed—­that is to say, the lids.  It’s something that happens to newly-born infants.”

“Well, then?” she said.

“Nothing, only the doctor’s had to put some salve on them, and they don’t look very pretty.”

“I don’t mind that, if it’s all right.”

“But we’ve had to put a bandage over them, and it looks forbidding.  Also the child is apt to cry.”

“I must see her at once!” she exclaimed.

“Just now she’s asleep, so don’t make us disturb her.”

“But how long will this last?”

“Not very long.  Meantime you must be sensible and not mind.  It’s something I made the doctor do, and you mustn’t blame me, or I’ll be sorry I came to you.”

“You dear thing,” she said, and put her hand in mine.  And then, suddenly:  “Why did you take it into your head to come, all of a sudden?”

“Don’t ask me,” I smiled.  “I have no excuse.  I just got homesick and had to see you.”

“It’s perfectly wonderful that you should be here now,” she declared.  “But you look badly.  Are you tired?”

“Yes, dear,” I said. (Such a difficult person to deceive!) “To tell the truth, I’m pretty nearly done up.  You see, I was caught in the storm, and I was desperately sea-sick.”