Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/148

138 child close to the strong light, and gaze at it hard and long, in a hungry attempt to recall how the soft cheek used to feel when she brushed her own against it, how the limp little body used to melt into her arms when she held it close.

It was a beautiful baby's face that smiled back at Helen from out of the ivory, but it was always a baby's face. That was the pity of it. What would she have looked like to-day? (Oh, never to know. Never to know!) What strength and confidence and beauty would that weak little body have attained? What strength and confidence and beauty would that spark of fine intelligence, shining so steadily in her baby's face, have kindled under her constant caring and tending? What had they both lost—this little daughter and herself, in way of rare companionship and human love?

Sometimes as Helen gazed at the picture, it seemed that she caught a wistful expression in the eyes, as if, she sentimentalized, her little girl had become tired of waiting, waiting, waiting, so long to grow up. It hurt, even after years it hurt Helen Morrison, to feel the stab of her uselessness to this child who had so trusted her. Oh, if she could only do something to rescue her from that eternal loveliness of babyhood—give her back the gift of life again, even though it might hurt her sometimes, even as life had hurt her mother.

Helen Morrison had worshiped her gentle, flower-like little daughter. She had been more than just a precious baby to her. She had been a symbol, a manifestation, a gift from heaven. For years and years Helen Morrison had longed for something