Chapter 29 - Page 2

buy
prizes for notable decorum and scholarship in the school, and baby
linen and blankets for the Maternity Bag and other benevolences. She
liked buying prizes and the baby clothes very much because--though
she was unaware of the fact--her youth delighted in youngness and the
fulfilling of young desires. Even oftener and more significantly
than ever did eyes turn towards her--try to hold hers--look after
her eagerly when she walked in the streets or drove with the
Duchess in the high-swung barouche. More and more she became used
to it and gradually she ceased to be afraid of it and began to feel
it nearly always--there were sometimes exceptions--a friendly thing.

She saw friendliness in it because when she caught sight as she so
often did of young things like herself passing in pairs, laughing
and talking and turning to look into each other's eyes, her being
told her that it was sweet and human and inevitable. They always
turned and looked at each other--these pairs--and then they smiled
or laughed or flushed a little. As she had not known when first
she recognized, as she looked down into the street from her nursery
window, that the children nearly always passed in twos or threes
and laughed and skipped and talked, so she did not know when
she first began to notice these joyous young pairs and a certain
touch of exultation in them and feel that it was sweet and quite
a simple common natural thing. Her noting and being sometimes
moved by it was as natural as her pleasure in the opening of spring
flowers or the new thrill of spring birds--but she did not know
that either.

The brain which has worked through many years in unison with the
soul to which it was apportioned has evolved a knowledge which
has deep cognizance of the universal law. The brain of the old
Duchess had so worked, keeping pace always with its guide, never
visualizing the possibility of working alone, also never falling
into the abyss of that human folly whose conviction is that all
that one sees and gives a special name to is all that exists--or
that the names accepted by the world justly and clearly describe
qualities, yearnings, moods, as they are. This had developed
within her wide perception and a wisdom which was sane and kind
to tenderness.

As she drove through the streets with Robin beside her she saw
the following eyes, she saw the girl's soft friendly look at the
young creatures who passed her glowing and uplifted by the joy of
life, and she was moved and even disturbed.

After her return from one particular morning's outing she sent
for Dowie.

"You have taken care of Miss Robin since she was a little child?"
she began.

"She was not quite six when I first went