Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/62

 "It is early days at present to talk about it," she said. And she laughed suddenly in a high-pitched key.

V

Water flowed under London Bridge. The flight of time demanded that Mary should fulfill her promise of being the most wonderful child ever seen. She did not fail, but grew in grace and beauty like a flower. At the date of her arrival her age was deemed to be one month. By the time it had been multiplied by twelve a personality had begun to emerge, twelve months later it was possible to gauge it.

There never was such a child. Eliza held that opinion from the first, and godmother Harriet shared it. Aunt Annie was more discreet, but her actions expressed an interest of the highest kind. From the moment she had committed herself to the memorable statement that "Whoever's child she may be, she is not a child of common parents," there was really no more to be said. But as the months passed and Mary became Mary yet more definitely, the old lady, to the astonishment of both her nieces, began to identify herself intimately with the fortunes of the creature.

The critical age of two was safely passed. And the age of three found Mary more than ever the cynosure of Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas. The infant had such health, her eyes were so blue, her laugh was so gay, her rose-bloom tints were so dazzling, that the childless hearth of the Kellys' was somehow touched with the hues of Paradise. In moments of gloom Joe had his doubts, and now and again expressed them.