to hold our hands and look into our faces and tell us how little we had
changed for all our hardships; and on the way to the house she actually
stopped to point out some alterations in the flower-borders. At last the
drawing-room door and the smiling housemaid turning the handle and the
unforgettable picture of a little girl, a little girl unlike anything we
had imagined, starting bravely to trot across the room with the little
speech that had been taught her. Half-way she came; I suppose our
regards were too fixed, too absorbed, for there she stopped with a
wail of terror at the strange faces, and ran straight back to the
outstretched arms of her Aunt Emma. The most natural thing in the
world, no doubt. I walked over to a chair opposite with my hand-bag and
umbrella and sat down--a spectator, aloof and silent. Aunt Emma fondled
and quieted the child, apologizing for her to me, coaxing her to look
up, but the little figure still shook with sobs, hiding its face in
the bosom that it knew. I smiled politely, like any other stranger,
at Emma's deprecations, and sat impassive, looking at my alleged baby
breaking her heart at the sight of her mother. It is not amusing even
now to remember the anger that I felt. I did not touch her or speak to
her; I simply sat observing my alien possession, in the frock I had
not made and the sash I had not chosen, being coaxed and kissed and
protected and petted by its Aunt Emma. Presently I asked to be taken to
my room, and there I locked myself in for two atrocious hours. Just once
my heart beat high, when a tiny knock came and a timid, docile little
voice said that tea was ready. But I heard the rustle of a skirt, and
guessed the directing angel in Aunt Emma, and responded, 'Thank you,
dear, run away and say that I am coming,' with a pleasant visitor's
inflection which I was able to sustain for the rest of afternoon.

'She goes to bed at seven,' said Emma.

'Oh, does she?' said I. 'A very good hour, I should think.'

'She sleeps in my room,' said Mrs. Farnham.

'We give her mutton broth very often, but seldom stock soup,' said Aunt
Emma. 'Mamma thinks it is too stimulating.'

'Indeed?' said I, to all of it.

They took me up to see her in her crib, and pointed out, as she lay
asleep, that though she had 'a general look' of me, her features were
distinctively Farnham.

'Won't you kiss her?' asked Alice. 'You haven't kissed her yet, and she
is used to so much affection.'

'I don't