Lady Mary
could not help it. She cried out to them, "Have pity upon me! Have pity
upon me! I am not cruel, as you think," with a keen anguish in her voice,
which seemed to be sharp enough to pierce the very air and go up to the
skies. And so, perhaps, it did; but never touched the human atmosphere in
which she stood a stranger. Jervis was threading her needle when her
mistress uttered that cry; but her hand did not tremble, nor did the
thread deflect a hair's-breadth from the straight line. The young mother
alone seemed to be moved by some faint disturbance. "Hush!" she said, "is
he waking?"--looking towards the cradle. But as the baby made no further
sound, she too, returned to her sewing; and they sat bending their heads
over their work round the table, and continued their talk. The room was
very comfortable, bright, and warm, as Lady Mary had liked all her rooms
to be. The warm firelight danced upon the walls; the women talked in
cheerful tones. She stood outside their circle, and looked at them with a
wistful face. Their notice would have been more sweet to her, as she
stood in that great humiliation, than in other times the look of a queen.
"But what is the matter with baby?" the mother said, rising hastily.
It was with no servile intention of securing a look from that little
prince of life that she who was not of this world had stepped aside
forlorn, and looked at him in his cradle.
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