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unquestioning confidence in the sovereignty of the situation.
Cynthia Lennox had always had her own way except in one respect, and
that experience had come to her lately.

Though she was such a slender woman, she seemed to have great
strength in her arms, and she bore Ellen easily and as if she had
been used to such a burden. She wrapped her cloak closely around the
child.

"Don't be afraid, darling," she kept whispering. Ellen panted in
bewilderment, and a terror which was half assuaged by something like
fascination.

She was conscious of a soft smother of camphor, in which the
fur-lined cloak had lain through the summer, and of that flower
odor, which was violets, though she did not know it. Only the wild
American scentless ones had come in little Ellen's way so far.

She felt herself carried up steps, then a door was thrown open, and
a warm breath of air came in her face, and the cloak was tossed
back, and she was set softly on the floor. The hall in which she
stood seemed very bright; she blinked and rubbed her eyes.

The lady stood over her, laughing gently, and when the child looked
up at her, seemed much younger than she had at first, very young in
spite of her white hair. There was a soft red on her cheek; her lips
looked full and triumphant with smiles; her eyes were like stars. An
emotion of her youth which had never become dulled by satisfaction
had suddenly blossomed out on her face, and transformed it. An
unassuaged longing may serve to preserve youth as well as an
undestroyed illusion; indeed, the two are one. Cynthia Lennox looked
at the child as if she had been a young mother, and she her
first-born; triumph over the future, and daring for all odds, and
perfect faith in the kingdom of joy were in her look. Had she nursed
one child like Ellen to womanhood, and tasted the bitter in the cup,
she would not have been capable of that look, and would have been as
old as her years. She threw off her cloak and took off her bonnet,
and the light struck her hair and made it look like silver. A brooch
in the laces at her throat shone with a thousand hues, and as Ellen
gazed at it she felt curiously dull and dizzy. She did not resist at
all when the lady removed her little white shawl, but stared at her
with the look of some small and helpless thing in too large a grasp
of destiny to admit of a struggle. "Oh, you darling!" Cynthia Lennox
said, and stooped and kissed her, and half carried her into a great,
w