Sylvia's Lovers

But, by-and-by, the time came when she was a prisoner in the house;

a prisoner in her room, lying in bed with a little baby by her

side--her child, Philip's child. His pride, his delight knew no

bounds; this was a new fast tie between them; this would reconcile

her to the kind of life that, with all its respectability and

comfort, was so different from what she had lived before, and which

Philip had often perceived that she felt to be dull and restraining.

He already began to trace in the little girl, only a few days old,

the lovely curves that he knew so well by heart in the mother's

face. Sylvia, too, pale, still, and weak, was very happy; yes,

really happy for the first time since her irrevocable marriage. For

its irrevocableness had weighed much upon her with a sense of dull

hopelessness; she felt all Philip's kindness, she was grateful to

him for his tender regard towards her mother, she was learning to

love him as well as to like and respect him. She did not know what

else she could have done but marry so true a friend, and she and her

mother so friendless; but, at the same time, it was like lead on her

morning spirits when she awoke and remembered that the decision was

made, the deed was done, the choice taken which comes to most people

but once in their lives. Now the little baby came in upon this state

of mind like a ray of sunlight into a gloomy room.

Even her mother was rejoiced and proud; even with her crazed brain

and broken heart, the sight of sweet, peaceful infancy brought light

to her. All the old ways of holding a baby, of hushing it to sleep,

of tenderly guarding its little limbs from injury, came back, like

the habits of her youth, to Bell; and she was never so happy or so

easy in her mind, or so sensible and connected in her ideas, as when

she had Sylvia's baby in her arms.

It was a pretty sight to see, however familiar to all of us such

things may be--the pale, worn old woman, in her quaint,

old-fashioned country dress, holding the little infant on her knees,

looking at its open, unspeculative eyes, and talking the little

language to it as though it could understand; the father on his

knees, kept prisoner by a small, small finger curled round his

strong and sinewy one, and gazing at the tiny creature with

wondering idolatry; the young mother, fair, pale, and smiling,

propped up on pillows in order that she, too, might see the

wonderful babe; it was astonishing how the doctor could come and go

without being drawn into the admiring vortex, and look at this baby

just as if babies came into the world every day.