She made excuse then when the child was in her arms to get away with him alone and all the others were busy here or there in field or kitchen, and the child’s sister was glad to be away, and the young girl sat and held the fair sound child strained against herself. She murmured to him and nursed him in her arms and felt this little, fat, round body helpless against her. Sometimes, since he was still nearly toothless, she chewed up rice or a cake for him and thrust the food into his little lips from hers, and when he sucked it solemnly, surprised at what he felt in his mouth suddenly, she laughed, but she did not know why she laughed, for she was not merry, seeing there was such a fierce, deep, painful longing in her which she did not know how to ease. One day soon before her marriage day she had the child thus alone and it grew late toward noon and the little girl did not come as early as usual to take the child to his mother to be fed, and the child fretted and tossed himself and would not be still. Then the young girl, seeing his hunger, and driven by some dim fierce passion she did not understand but only felt in her blood urging her on, went into her room and shut the door fast and with trembling hands she undid her coat and put the child to her own young slender breast and he laid hold on it lustily and sucked hard at it. Then she, standing there staring into his baby face, felt such a tumult in her blood as she had never dreamed of and the tears came into her eyes and sounds rose to her lips, broken sounds that were not words, and she held him strained against her and did not know what it was she felt within herself, full and yearning and passionate, greater than the child she held, greater than herself. Then the moment broke. Her little breast was empty and the child wailed in disappointment and she fastened her coat again and was ashamed somehow of what she had done and she went quickly out and the little girl his sister came running in and seized him and ran with him to his own mother. But to the young girl the moment was an awakening and more almost than marriage. Ever after even the man she wed was most to her because he was a part of motherhood, and not for his own sake only did she love him. * * * * * So had it been with her in her raw youth. Now with her body ripe and knowing all and herself in all her prime of womanhood she was left, woman alone, and every day the children grew up taller and every day they grew further from their babyhood they seemed less her own.