Adam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as you
would to a four-footer, and they'd come. The Barbilles had names--always
names of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille--Don't rock the
cradle so fast," he suddenly added with an irritable gesture, breaking
off from his argument. "Don't you know better than that when a child's
asleep? Do you want it to wake up and cry?"

She flushed to the roots of her hair, for he had said something for which
she had no reply. She had undoubtedly disturbed the child. It stirred
in its sleep, then opened its eyes, and at once began to cry.

"There," said Jean Jacques, "what did I tell you? Any one that had ever
had children would know better than that."

Norah paid no attention to his mocking words, to the undoubted-truth of
his complaint. Stooping over, she gently lifted the child up. With
hungry tenderness she laid it against her breast and pressed its cheek to
her own, murmuring and crooning to it.

"Acushla! Acushla! Ah, the pretty bird--mother's sweet--mother's
angel!" she said softly.

She rocked backwards and forwards. Her eyes, though looking at Jean
Jacques as she crooned and coaxed and made lullaby, apparently did not
see him. She was as concentrated as though it were a matter of life and
death. She was like some ancient nurse of a sovereign-child, plainly
dressed, while the dainty white clothes of the babe in her arms--ah,
hadn't she raided the hoard she had begun when first married, in the hope
of a child of her own, to provide this orphan with clothes good enough
for a royal princess!