Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/65

 pride and independence of Frederick Addison well. The hot drops melted the thin crust of ice over the woman's heart. She leaned forward and lifted him out of the cradle and into her lap, cuddling him to her and kissing his wet eyes tenderly. His curly head crept close to her face, and his little hand stole under the linen that covered her bosom and found a resting place over her heart. The tears still lay on his cheeks, but his lips smiled in unconscious triumph.

The Sisters, coming in the early morning to see how he had fared, checked their steps on the threshold and gazed in awe.

For the first time since the croupy alarm of the night before the baby slept a natural sleep, his damp curls clinging to his brow, his lips parted in his old-time smile, his small hand under the nun's linen neck-band guarding the citadel he had stormed.

And over him hung the transfigured face of his "Chicker Menie," her softened eyes fastened on him with the "mother look" they had never held before, her willing arms holding him in a close embrace, and her voice crooning the little song he had royally demanded before he drifted out on the sea of childish dreams.