he child's personality that after the first few months it was like
reading about a somewhat uninteresting infant in a book. I was sure
Cecily was not uninteresting, but her chroniclers were. We used to wade
through the long, thin sheets and saw how much more satisfactory it
would be when Cecily could write to us herself. Meanwhile we noted her
weekly progress with much the feeling one would have about a far-away
little bit of property that was giving no trouble and coming on
exceedingly well. We would take possession of Cecily at our convenience;
till then, it was gratifying to hear of our unearned increment in dear
little dimples and sweet little curls.

She was nearly four when I saw her again. We were home on three months'
leave; John had just got his first brevet for doing something which he
does not allow me to talk about in the Black Mountain country; and we
were fearfully pleased with ourselves. I remember that excitement lasted
well up to Port Said. As far as the Canal, Cecily was only one of the
pleasures and interests we were going home to: John's majority was
the thing that really gave savour to life. But the first faint line of
Europe brought my child to my horizon; and all the rest of the way she
kept her place, holding out her little arms to me, beckoning me on. Her
four motherless years brought compunction to my heart and tears to my
eyes; she should have all the compensation that could be. I suddenly
realized how ready I was--how ready!--to have her back. I rebelled
fiercely against John's decision that we must not take her with us on
our return to the frontier; privately, I resolved to dispute it, and, if
necessary, I saw myself abducting the child--my own child. My days and
nights as the ship crept on were full of a long ache to possess her; the
defrauded tenderness of the last four years rose up in me and sometimes
caught at my throat. I could think and talk and dream of nothing else.
John indulged me as much as was reasonable, and only once betrayed by a
yawn that the subject was not for him endlessly absorbing. Then I cried
and he apologized. 'You know,' he said, 'it isn't exactly the same
thing. I'm not her mother.' At which I dried my tears and expanded,
proud and pacified. I was her mother!

Then the rainy little station and Alice, all-embracing in a damp
waterproof, and the drive in the fly, and John's mother at the gate and
a necessary pause while I kissed John's mother. Dear thing, she wanted