Page:The Eyes of Innocence.djvu/163

Rh it, was seized with an extraordinary emotion, as though it had been a doll of her childhood, a doll with which she had played at the age of three or four, one of those dolls which little girls treat as babies, lavishing on them all the devotion, the infinite care, the tenderness, the pride and the anxiety of the future mother. And she saw this one, this poor, wretched rag of a doll, with no clothes and only half a head, she saw it, or rather recalled it, clad in a dress of orange silk and a green shawl, with bronze shoes on its feet, a silver chain round its neck and the most wonderful mop of yellow hair upon its head.

She held it for a long time; and it seemed to her that her hands were used to that clumsy body and to the badly-jointed arms and legs. Nothing about the doll disgusted her. She felt as if she could kiss the little porcelain forehead, the prim, painted eyebrows, the chubby cheeks.

There was a faint sound behind her. She turned round and saw a dirty-looking woman