Page:The return of the soldier (IA returnofsoldier00west2).pdf/187

 I had to steady her. She could not go to Chris and shock him not only by her news, but also by her agony. I rose and took her the things I had found in the ottoman and the toy cupboard.

"I think these are the best things to take. This is one of the blue jerseys he used to wear. This is the red ball he and his father used to play with on the lawn."

Her hard hunger for the child that was not melted into a tenderness for the child that had been. She looked broodingly at what I carried, then laid a kind hand on my arm.

"You've chosen the very things he will remember. Oh, you poor girl!"

I found that from her I could accept even pity.

She nursed the jersey and the ball, changed them from arm to arm, and held them to her face.

"I think I know the kind of boy he was—a man from the first." She kissed