er, between an unknown woman and a stranger youth. "Good
God! Father," cried she, "where is my mother?"

"Thy mother!" said the woman, with a forecasting tone, and sprang
toward her: "Ha, thou surely canst not--yes, indeed, indeed thou art
my lost, long-lost, dear, only Mary!" She had recognized her by a
little brown mole beneath the chin, as well as by her eyes and shape.
All embraced her, all were moved with joy, and the parents wept. Mary
was astonished that she almost reached to her father's stature; and
she could not understand how her mother had become so changed and
faded; she asked the name of the stranger youth. "It is our neighbor's
Andrew," said Martin. "How comest thou to us again, so unexpectedly,
after seven long years? Where hast thou been? Why didst thou never
send us tidings of thee?"

"Seven years!" said Mary, and could not order her ideas and
recollections. "Seven whole years?"

"Yes, yes," said Andrew, laughing, and shaking her trustfully by the
hand; "I have won the race, good Mary; I was at the pear-tree and back
again seven years ago, and thou, sluggish creature, art but just
returned!"

They again asked, they pressed her; but remembering her instruction,
she could answer nothing. It was they themselves chiefly that, by
degrees, shaped a story for her: How, having lost her way, she had
been taken up by a coach, and carried to a strange remote part, where
she could not give the people any notion of her parents' residence;
how she was conducted to a distant town, where certain worthy persons
brought her up, and loved her; how they had lately died, and at length
she had recollected her birthplace, and so returned. "No matter how it
is!" exclaimed her mother; "enough that we have thee again, my little
daughter, my own, my all!"

Andrew waited supper, and Mary could not be at home in anything she
saw. The house seemed small and dark; she felt astonished at her
dress, which was clean and simple, but appeared quite foreign; she
looked at the ring on her finger, and the gold of it glittered
strangely, inclosing a stone of burning red. To her father's question,
she replied that the ring also was a present from her benefactors.

She was glad when the hour of sleep arrived, and she hastened to her
bed. Next morning she felt much more collected; she had now arranged
her thoughts a little, and could better stand the questions of the
people in the village, all of whom came in to bid her welcome. Andrew