Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/141

Rh Stella didn't lose hope. She didn't, anyhow, show that she lost hope. She managed to keep her eyes bright, and her lips smiling, and her head erect, in spite of repeated rebukes.

"Why, I've got to. For Lollie's sake," she said. "Lollie mustn't know her mother has got anything to look sour-faced over. Oh, we'll be all right after a while—Lollie and me," she told Effie McDavitt. "We'll come out on top in the end. You watch us."

was always "Lollie and me," always "we," and "us," by that time. Stella didn't even think in the singular number, once her maternal instinct had worked its way up through her vanities and self-interests and appeared in her consciousness. The seed of it must have been planted deep, for it took a period of years to appear. In vain Stephen had looked for it when Laurel was a baby; and later when she was in the helpless, toddling stage.

For the first half-dozen years of Laurel's life, Stella took her lightly. Not that she neglected her in any obvious way. She couldn't. There were certain manners and forms in the modern bringing-up of a child that had to be observed. She had an excellent nurse-girl for Lollie; she spent hours in the selection of Lollie's clothes; she had a Mother-Goose cretonne at Lollie's windows; a Noah's-Ark paper on Lollie's walls. There were low chairs, and low shelves. Stella loved to show Laurel's room to guests, when occasion arose. Laurel benefited by many an attention from Stella in those days that did