Read it through once

The poor woman was smitten almost helpless with surprise and grief; but she contrived to hide her emotions, and to soothe the boy to sleep again; then she crept apart and communed miserably with herself upon the disastrous result of her experiment. She tried to believe that her Tom’s madness had banished this habitual gesture of his; but she could not do it. “No,” she said, “his _hands_ are not mad; they could not unlearn so old a habit in so brief a time. Oh, this is a heavy day for me!”