Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/306

294 man. Let 's see. He come back to N' York." Her hand had tightened on his arm, in a shaking grasp. "An' one day, on the Bow'ry, he seen a sign 'Madame Carlotta' in a Musée. Wonder if it was her?"

He grinned round past his shoulder at her. "Looks like her."

Her poor old face was as if paralyzed in an expression of incredulous amazement and delight. "Ah!" she said in her throat, without moving her lips, open-mouthed. And then, with a shaking jaw, stutteringly, she cried: "B-b-bab!" "Sure thing," he grinned.

She caught him round the neck and drew him down to her, and in spite of his shamefaced and protesting laughter she almost strangled him with a hug and smothered him in her embraces. "Bab! Bab!" she cried, her hands about his face as if he were a child—patting his cheeks, stroking his hair back from his forehead, kissing and fondling him. "Oh, Bab!" Her tears came with her kisses. "My—my—"

It was too much for her. She burst into sobs, fumbling for her handkerchief.

The boy patted her awkwardly on the back whispering: "Hol' on, mom. That's all right. Don't cry about it."

"Oh, I can't help it," she wept, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her kimono. "I 'm so— Oh, I was so worried. Oh, it did n't seem as if there was any one— Oh, Bab!"

"That 's all right," he said. "I 'd 'a' told yuh long