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He don't dare beat Jim now, though" this proudly "Jim's as big as he is now, an' Ella nobody'd dast lay a hand on Ella ..." almost as suddenly as he had started to talk, the boy stopped. For the moment the episode of the kitten was a forgotten thing. There was only pity, only a blank sort of horror, on Rose-Marie's face. "Doesn't your father love you any of you?" she asked. "Naw."
Rose-Marie exclaimed again, and went down on her knees on the dirty floor real women will always kneel before a beautiful child. Lily might have been four years old. Her hair, drawn back from her white little face, was the colour of pale gold, and her lips were faintly coral. But it was her deep eyes, with their vague expression, that clutched, somehow, at Rose-Marie's heart.
And while Minnie Cohen was at the vaudeville show last night developing her soul, perhaps her youngest baby fell against the stove. Well, it'll be better for the baby if it does die! And there are others " The door slammed upon his angry back. Rose-Marie's face was white as she leaned against the dark wainscoting. "Minnie Cohen brought the baby in last week," she shuddered, "such a dear baby!
The grim twist at one corner of his mouth became more pronounced. "Aw," he said gruffly, "why don't yer mind yer own business?" If Rose-Marie's hands had been free, she would have taken the boy suddenly and firmly by both shoulders. She felt an overwhelming desire to shake him to shake him until his teeth chattered.
"Tell me that you're going to like me, Lily!" she almost implored. "I love little girls." The child did not answer indeed, she did not seem to hear. But one thin little hand, creeping out, touched Rose-Marie's face with a gesture that was singularly appealing, singularly full of affection. When the fingers touched her cheek, Rose-Marie felt a sudden suspicion, a sudden dread.
It was uncanny, almost, to see the child so happily beginning to unpack the suit-case. The sight dried Rose-Marie's tears in an almost miraculous way. "Let's put away the things," she suggested shakily, to Ella. "For you won't be going now, will you?" The face that Ella Volsky lifted was a changed face.
I gave him a book to read the other day the letters of an American Missionary in China and he laughed and told me that he couldn't waste his time. What do you think of that! But later," Rose-Marie's voice sank to a horrified whisper, "later, I saw him reading a cheap novel he had time for a cheap novel!" The Superintendent looked down into Rose-Marie's earnest little face.
You have clubs for us, an' parties, an' uplift meetin's. You pray fer us an' with us. You tell us who t' marry, an' how t' bring up our children, an' what butcher t' buy our meat off of. But when it comes t' understandin' us an' likin' us! Well, you're too good, that's all." She paused, staring at Rose-Marie's incredulous face with insolent eyes.
But Rose-Marie's ears were already deaf to all things save self-congratulation; for sitting in the middle of the highway, playing contentedly with the dust and some faded buttercups, was a white-pinafored baby with a mop of tow-coloured hair tied over one temple with a pale-blue ribbon.
It shrieked again with an almost human cry as she started around the bench toward it. And the wild throbbing of her heart told her that she was witnessing, for the first time, a phase of human nature of which she had never dreamed. Rose-Marie's hand upon the small boy's coat collar was not gentle. With surprising strength, for she was small and slight, she jerked him aside.
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