Majendie grasped Anne's arm and led her forward. In the middle of the green circle, under the streaming sun, cradled in warm grass, a girl baby sat laughing and fondling her naked feet. She laughed as she lay on her back and opened one folded, wrinkled foot to the sun; she laughed as she threw herself forward and beat her knees with the outspread palms of her hands; she laughed as she rocked her soft body to and fro from her rosy hips; then she stopped laughing suddenly, and began crooning to herself a delicious, unintelligible song. "Look," said Majendie, "that's what I wanted to show you." "Oh--oh--oh--" said Anne, and looked, and stood stock-still. The beatitude of that adorable little figure possessed the scene. Green earth and blue sky were so much shelter and illumination to its pure and solitary joy. "Did you ever see anything so heart-rending?" said Majendie. "That anything could be so young!" Anne shook her head, dumb with the fascination. As they approached again, the little creature rolled on its waist, and crawled over the grass to her feet. "The little lamb--" said she, and stooped, and lifted it. It turned to her, cuddling. Through the thin muslin of her bodice she could feel the pressure of its tender palms. Majendie stood close to her and tried gently to detach and possess himself of the delicate clinging fingers. But his eyes were upon Anne's eyes. They drew her; she looked up, her eyes flashed to the meeting-point; his widened in one long penetrating gaze. A sudden pricking pain went through her, there where the pink and flaxen thing lay sun-warm and life-warm to her breast. At first she did not heed it. She stood hushed, attentive to the prescience that woke in her; surrendered to the secret, with desire that veiled itself to meet its unveiled destiny. Then the veil fell. The eyes that looked at her grew tender, and before their tenderness the veil, the veil of her desire that had hidden him from her, fell. Her face burned, and she hid it against the child's face as it burrowed into the softness of her breast. When she would have parted the child from her, it clung. She laughed. "Release me." And he undid the clinging arms, and took the child from her, and laid it again in the cradling grass. "It's conceived a violent passion for you," said he. "They always do," said she serenely. The door of the cottage was open. The mother stood on the threshold, shading her eyes and wondering at them. She gave Anne water, hospitably, in an old china cup. When Anne had drunk she handed the cup to her husband. He drank with his eyes fixed on her over the brim, and gave it to her again. He wondered whether she would drink from it after him (Anne was excessively fastidious). To his intense satisfaction, she drank, draining the last drop.