no disgrace
to claim such people as her friends. With a beating heart she rang the
bell, asking for Mr. Warner, and now, trembling in every limb, she
awaited his coming. He was not prepared to meet her, and at first he
did not know her, she was so changed; but when, throwing aside her
bonnet, she turned her face so that the light from the window opposite
shone fully upon her, he recognized her in a moment, and exclaimed,
"Margaret--Margaret Miller! why are you here?"

The words reached Rose's ear, and darting forward she stood within
the door, just as Margaret, staggering a step or two towards Henry,
answered passionately, "I have come to tell you what I myself but
recently have learned"; and wringing her hands despairingly, she
continued, "I am not Maggie Miller, I am not anybody; I am Hagar
Warren's grandchild, the child of her daughter and your own father!
Oh, Henry, don't you see it? I am your sister. Take me as such, will
you? Love me as such, or I shall surely die. I have nobody now in the
wide world but you. They are all gone, all--Madam Conway, Theo too,
and--and--" She could not speak that name. It died upon her lips, and
tottering to a chair she would have fallen had not Henry caught her in
his arms.

Leading her to the sofa, while Rose, perfectly confounded, still stood
within the door, he said to the half-crazed girl: "Margaret, I do not
understand you. I never had a sister, and my father died when I was
six months old. There must be some mistake. Will you tell me what you
mean?"

Bewildered and perplexed, Margaret began a hasty repetition of Hagar's
story, but ere it was three-fourths told there came from the open door
a wild cry of delight, and quick as lightning a fairy form flew across
the floor, white arms were twined round Maggie's neck, kiss after kiss
was pressed upon her lips, and Rose's voice was in her ear, never
before half so sweet as now, when it murmured soft and low to the
weary girl: "My sister Maggie--mine you are--the child of my own
father, for I was Rose Hamilton, called Warner, first to please my
aunt, and next to please my Henry. Oh, Maggie darling, I am so happy
now!" and the little snowy hands smoothed caressingly the bands of
hair, so unlike her own fair waving tresses.

It was, indeed, a time of almost perfect bliss to them all, and for
a moment Margaret forgot her pain, which, had Hagar known the truth,
need not have come to her. But she scarcely regretted it now, when she