"He takes notice of her already!" she exclaimed, looking out at the
little creature in white muslin robes, held up against the warm blue sky;
"see, they are cooing at each other! I am sure that must be cooing."
And then the two mothers went out upon the sunny terrace-walk and fondly
contemplated these domestic treasures, until the domestic treasures were
seized with some of the inexplicable throes and mysterious agonies of
early babyhood, and had to be borne off shrieking to their nurseries.
"Dear angel," said Gustave, of his "little last one," "she has the very
shriek of Clarice here, poignant and penetrating, until to drown the
heart. Dost thou figure to thyself that thy voice was penetrating as
that, my beautiful, in the time?"
He kissed his beautiful, and she ran off to join the procession following
the two babies,--alarmed nurses, distracted mammas, shrieking infants,
anxious damsels.
"_C'est un vrai tourbillon_," as Gustave remarked to his companion
Valentine Hawkehurst; "these women, how they love their children! What of
saints, what of Madonnas, what of angels!"
Whereupon he spouted Victor Hugo:
"Lorsque l'enfant parait, le cercle de famille
Applaudit a grands cris; son doux regard qui brille
Fait briller tous les yeux;
Et les plus tristes fronts, les plus souilles peut-etre,
Se derident soudain a voir l'enfant paraitre,
Innocent et joyeux.
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