Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/726

 positive. And the other woman laughed so disagreeably. Emma had not forgotten that laugh. She might well laugh, with her own lusty little savages beside her.

The first day that Emma left her room, one evening, at dinner, she couldn't help asking her husband whether he remembered the Indian woman's prediction. David was taking a glass of wine. He nodded.

"You see it's half come true," said Emma. "A little girl."

"My dear," said David, "one would think you believed it."

"Of course she'll be sick," said Emma. "We must expect that."

"Do you think, my dear," pursued David, "that it's a little girl because that venerable person said so? "

"Why no, of course not. It's only a coincidence."

"Well, then, if it's merely a coincidence, we may let it rest. If the old woman's dictum was a real prediction, we may also let it rest. That it has half come true lessens the chances for the other half."

The reader may detect a flaw in David's logic; but it was quite good enough for Emma. She lived upon it for a year, at the end of which it was in a manner put to the test.

It were certainly incorrect to say that Emma guarded and cherished her little girl any the more carefully by reason of the old woman's assurance; her natural affection was by itself a guaranty of perfect vigilance. But perfect vigilance is not infallible. When the child was a twelvemonth old it fell grievously sick, and for a week its little life hung by a thread. During this time I am inclined to think that Emma quite forgot the sad prediction suspended over the infant's head; it is certain, at least, that she never spoke of it to her husband, and that he made no attempt to remind her of it. Finally, after a hard struggle, the little girl came out of the cruel embrace of disease, panting and exhausted, but uninjured. Emma felt as if her child was immortal, and as if, henceforth, life would have no trials for her. It was not till then that she thought once more of the prophecy of the swarthy sybil.

She was sitting on the sofa in her chamber, with the child lying asleep in her lap, watching the faint glow of returning life in its poor little wasted cheeks. David came in from his day's labor and sat down beside her.

"I wonder," said Emma, "what our friend Magawisca—or whatever her name is—would say to that."

"She would feel desperately snubbed," said David. "Wouldn't she, little transcendent convalescent?" And he gently tickled the tip of his little girl's nose with the end of his moustache. The baby softly opened her eyes, and, vaguely conscious of her father, lifted her hand and languidly clutched his nose. "Upon my soul," said David, "she's positively boisterous. There's life in the old dog yet."

"Oh, David, how can you?" said Emma. But she sat watching her husband and child with a placid, gleeful smile. Gradually, her smile grew the least bit serious, and then vanished, though she still looked like the happy woman that she was. The nurse came up from supper, and took possession of the baby. Emma let it go, and remained sitting on the sofa. When the nurse had gone into the adjoining room, she laid her hand in one of her husband's.

"David," she said, "I have a little secret."

"I've no doubt," said David, "that you have a dozen. You're the most secretive, clandestine, shady sort of woman I ever came across."