His mother loved him
as much as he loved her. She was beautiful but--it seemed to reveal
itself--not like the Lady Downstairs. She did not laugh very much,
though she laughed when they played together. He was too big now
to sit on her knee, but squeezed into the big chair beside her when
she read or told him stories. He always did what his mother told
him. She knew everything in the world and so knew what he ought to
do. Even when he was a big man he should do what his mother told
him.
Robin listened to every word with enraptured eyes and bated breath.
This was the story of Love and Life and it was the first time she
had ever heard it. It was as much a revelation as the Kiss. She
had spent her days in the grimy Nursery and her one close intimate
had been a bony woman who had taught her not to cry, employing
the practical method of terrifying her into silence by pinching
her--knowing it was quite safe to do it. It had not been necessary
to do it often. She had seen people on the streets, but she had
only seen them in passing by. She had not watched them as she had
watched the sparrows. When she was taken down for a few minutes
into the basement, she vaguely knew that she was in the way and that
Mrs. Blayne's and Andrews' and Jennings' low voices and occasional
sidelong look meant that they were talking about her and did not
want her to hear.
"I have no mother and no father," she explained quite simply to
Donal.
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