Important, self-absorbed, she waited her
appointed days, and in the early winter a wizened, mottled little
daughter was born. Julia was the name Emeline had chosen for a girl, and
Julia was the name duly given her by the radiant and ecstatic George in
the very first hour of her life. Emeline had lost interest in the
name--indeed, in the child and her father as well--just then; racked,
bewildered, wholly spent, she lay back in the curly-maple bed, the first
little seed of that general resentment against life that was eventually
to envelop her, forming in her mind.
They had told her that because of this or that she would not have a
"hard time," and she had had a very hard time. They had told her that
she would forget the cruel pain the instant it was over, and she knew
she never would forget it. It made her shudder weakly to think of all
the babies in the world--of the schools packed with children--at what a
cost!
Emeline recovered quickly, and shut her resentment into her own breast.
Julie, as she was always called, was a cross baby, and nowadays the two
front rooms were usually draped with her damp undergarments, and odorous
of sour bottles and drying clothes.
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