Then she left her seat and went to
the kind creature's side.
"I want to KISS you, Dowie," she said.
"To be sure, my lamb," answered Dowson, and, laying down her
mending, she gave her a motherly hug. After which Robin went back
contentedly to her play.
The Frenchwoman thought it a pretty bit of childish affectionateness.
But it happened more than once during the day, and at night
Mademoiselle commented upon it.
"She has an affectionate heart, the little one," she remarked. "Madame,
her mother, is so pretty and full of gaieties and pleasures that
I should not have imagined she had much time for caresses and the
nursery."
Even by this time Dowson had realized that with Mademoiselle she
was upon safe ground and was in no danger of betraying herself
to a gossip. She quietly laid down her sewing and looked at her
companion with grave eyes.
"Her mother has never kissed her in her life that I am aware of,"
she said.
"Has never--!" Mademoiselle ejaculated. "Never!"
"Just as you see her, she is, Mademoiselle," Dowson said. "Any
sensible woman would know, when she heard her talk about her
child. I found it all out bit by bit when first I came here. I'm
going to talk plain and have done with it. Her first six years
she spent in a sort of dog kennel on the top floor of this house.
No sun, no real fresh air. Two little holes that were dingy and
gloomy to dull a child's senses.
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