iss your mammy."

Their lips met, and they were clasped in each other's arms. One put into
the embrace all of her new-found joy, the other all the suppressed
feeling of the last half hour, which in turn embodied the unsatisfied
yearning of many years.

The music had ceased and the pupils had left the hall. Mrs. Harper's
charges had supposed her gone, and had left for home without her. But
the two women, sitting in Clara's chamber, hand in hand, were oblivious
to external things and noticed neither the hour nor the cessation of the
music.

"Why, dear mammy," said the young woman musingly, "did you not find me,
and restore me to my people?"

"Alas, child! I was not white, and when I was picked up from the water,
after floating miles down the river, the man who found me kept me
prisoner for a time, and, there being no inquiry for me, pretended not
to believe that I was free, and took me down to New Orleans and sold me
as a slave. A few years later the war set me free. I went to St. Louis
but could find no trace of you. I had hardly dared to hope that a child
had been saved, when so many grown men and women had lost their lives. I
made such inquiries as I could, but all in vain."

"Did you go to the orphan asylum?"

"The orphan asylum had been burned and with it all the records. The war
had scattered the people so that I could find no one who knew about a
lost child saved from a river wreck. There were many orphans in those
days, and one more or less was not likely to dwell in the public mind."

"Did you tell my people in Virginia?"

"They, too, were scattered by the war. Your uncles lost their lives on
the battlefield. The family mansion was burned to the ground. Your
father's remaining relatives were reduced to poverty, and moved away
from Virginia."

"What of my mother's people?"

"They are all dead. God punished them. They did not love your father,
and did not wish him to marry your mother. They helped to drive him to
his death."

"I am alone in the world, then, without kith or kin," murmured Clara,
"and yet, strange to say, I am happy. If I had known my people and lost
them, I should be sad. They are gone, but they have left me their name
and their blood. I would weep for my poor father and mother if I were
not so glad."

Just then some one struck a chord upon the piano in the hall, and the
sudden breaking of the stillness recalled Clara's attention to the
lateness of the hour.

"I had forgotten about