er unconscious face,
they drew back and burst into tears. Olive was talking to the strange
gentleman, for whose name no one had thought to inquire, and Dr. Barnett
and Mrs. Dering hung over the bed, winning life back to the fragile
figure thereon. They all saw the first opening of her eyes, that went
straight to one dear face, saw the feeble arms lifted with a strength,
born of joy, and heard the sobbing cry:

"Mama, mama! darling mama!" and everybody cried.

After awhile the girls went in and kissed her quietly, then the room was
ordered to be cleared, and under the influence of an opiate, Ernestine
sank to sleep, with her hands clasping those of the dear woman who was,
and would be always, "mama."

When they went down stairs, Olive presented them to Cousin Roger, and
told in few words of all his kindness; and Kat, the vivacious, who hated
and longed to see him removed from the face of the earth, was seen to
drop two big tears on his hand that she was shaking heartily. To
Beatrice came the same vague, uncertain feeling that Olive had
experienced when first seeing him, and he caught the same bewildered
look in her eyes.

Had she ever seen him before? If not, what was it in his face that
reminded her of--something?

Mrs. Dering did not leave Ernestine's side again that day. Olive came up
with her, and they held a long conversation in low voices; and a look of
perfect content was seen to drift into the mother's pale, anxious face,
as she listened how Jean was growing well, and then looked down at the
quiet sleeper--the one who had been snatched from the burning, and given
back into her arms.

"Just think, if I had not gone to Virginia?" Olive said that evening,
while they were all in the kitchen, doing up the supper work. "It really
makes me tremble to think how I did not want to go, and hesitated about
it."

"If I had been you, I should have screamed right out when she came on
the stage," said Kat, unable to imagine herself in such a position and
remaining quiet. "How did you feel, Olive?"

"So weak that I could not move, I never came so near losing my senses in
my life, and it is such a dreadful feeling that you can't scream. It was
dreadful to sit there and watch her, and when the hemorrhage came, I
just jumped and ran."

"Dear me, how you must have felt," said Kittie with a shiver, as she
polished a tumbler brightly, and put it back in the water to every one's
amusement.

"I don't know what I would have