"
She took them into her bedroom and laid them side by side on her bed.
They had thriven finely--justified, as far as that went, Harriet's
decision in favor of bottle feeding. Had she died back there in that bed
of pain, never come out of the ether at all, they'd still be just like
this--plump, placid, methodical. Rose had thought of that a hundred
times, but it wasn't what she was thinking of now.
The thing that caught her as she stood looking down on them, was the
wave of sudden pity. She saw them suddenly as persons with the long road
all ahead of them, as a boy and a girl, a youth and a maid, a man and a
woman. They were destined to have their hopes and loves, fears,
triumphs, tragedies perhaps. The boy there, Rodney, might have to face,
some day, the situation his father confronted now; might have to come
back into an empty home, and turn a stiff inexpressive face on a coolly
curious world. Little Portia there might find herself, some day, gazing
with wide seared eyes, at a life some unexpected turn of the wheel of
Fate had thrust her, all unprepared, into the midst of.
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