"The child's face is wonderful. If you could but have seen her
eyes when I said it. It is not the mere beauty of size and shape
and colour which affect one. It is something else. She is a little
flame of feeling."
The "something else" was in the sound of her voice as she answered.
"She will be in the same house with me! Sometimes perhaps I may
see her and talk to her! Oh! how GRATEFUL I am!" She might even
see and talk to her as often as she wished, it revealed itself
and when she and Mademoiselle got into their hansom cab to drive
away, she caught at the Frenchwoman's hand and clung to it, her
eyelashes wet,
"It is as if there MUST be Goodness which takes care of one," she
said. "I used to believe in it so--until I was afraid of all the
world. Dowie means most of all. I did now know how I could bear
to let her go away. And since her husband and her daughter died,
she has no one but me. I should have had no one but her if you
had gone back to Belgium, Mademoiselle. And now she will be safe
in the same house with me. Perhaps the Duchess will keep her until
she dies. I hope she will keep me until I die. I will be as good
and faithful as Dowie and perhaps the Duchess will live until I
am quite old--and not pretty any more. And I will make economies
as you have made them, Mademoiselle, and save all my salary--and
I might be able to end my days in a little cottage in the country.
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