Sallie Warham smiled gently. "Bless the baby" she said half
aloud. Then her smile faded and a look of sadness and pity came.
"Poor child!" she murmured. "The Warham men's hard. But then all
the men's hard. Poor child." And gently she kissed the girl's
flushed cheek. "And she never had no mother, nor nothing." She
sighed, gradually lowered the flame of the little old glass
lamp, blew it out, and went noiselessly from the room, closing
the door behind her.
CHAPTER IX
SUSAN sat up in bed suddenly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
It was broad day, and the birds were making a mighty clamor. She
gazed round, astonished that it was not her own room. Then she
remembered. But it was as a child remembers; for when we have
the sense of perfect physical well-being we cannot but see our
misfortunes with the child's sense of unreality--and Susan had
not only health but youth, was still in the child stage of the
period between childhood and womanhood. She lay down again, with
the feeling that so long as she could stay in that comfortable
bed, with the world shut out, just so long would all be well
with her. Soon, however, the restlessness of all nature under
the stimulus and heat of that brilliant day communicated itself
to her vigorous young body. For repose and inaction are as
foreign to healthy life as death itself, of which they are the
symptoms; and if ever there was an intense and vivid life, Susan
had it.
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