As the mistress of the house
arrived, and was recognized, there was a little pitiful stir in
the crowd. Nancy remembered some of this long afterward,
remembered seeing various household goods--the piano, and some
rugs, and some loose books--carefully ranged at one side,
remembered a glimpse of Pauline crying, and chattering French, and
Pierre patting his wife's shoulder. She saw familiar faces, and
unfamiliar faces, as in a dream.
But under her dream hammered the one agonized question: The
children--the children--ah, where were they? Nancy stumbled from
the car, asked a sharp question. The villager who heard it
presented her a blank and yet not unkindly face. He didn't know,
ma'am, he didn't know anything--he had just come.
She knew now that she was losing her reason, that she would never
be sane again if anything--anything had happened--
The crowd parted as she ran forward. And she saw, with a lightning
look that burned the picture on her brain for all her life, the
boys blessed little figures--and Anne leaning on her father's
knee, as he sat on an overturned bookcase--and against Bert's
shoulder the little fat, soft brown hand, and the sunny crown of
hair that were Priscilla's--
Chapter Thirty-three
Blinded with an exquisite rush of tears, somehow Nancy reached
them, and fell on her knees at her husband's side, and caught her
baby to her heart.
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