or her forgiveness, and
fervently resolved that next year she should have nothing to forgive.

The three travellers went rapidly on towards their own dear home. At
the last station their father's carriage was waiting for them. A shout
of joy hailed them. It was Rikli. She had been allowed to come to meet
them. It seemed that night as if they would never be tired enough to go
to bed, they were so excited with joy at seeing father and mother and
aunty, and at feeling themselves at home again. Questions and answers
were all poured out together, interrupted by frequent exclamations of
affection and of joy at being all together once more. There seemed no
chance of quiet or rest that night.

But at last the evening came to an end. The active trio were in bed and
asleep, and the happy mother went softly from one bedside to another,
and breathed a silent thanksgiving over each sleeping child, that they
had all been preserved from harm and brought safely back to her arms.

Mrs. Stanhope's summer had been full of excitement of various kinds,
such as she had never in her whole life experienced before. It had been
rather a trying thing to her to have her very methodical and regular
life so disturbed, and she had not always known how to take with
equanimity the alarms and inconveniences that her generous invitation to
the doctor's children had brought upon her. But she had been interested
in the children, and it had been a good thing for her to become
accustomed to the interruption of the too rigorous routine in which she
had been living. Elsli's illness had been a deep and painful experience,
but it had produced a blessed change in the whole tone of her life and
spirit. Her new-born love for the little girl had broken up the sealed
fountains of her heart, and she felt again the bliss of a mother's love
ardently returned by a child. A warmer glow was infused too into her
feeling for Fani, to whom she had been attracted at first by his
resemblance to her Philo. Time had softened her sorrow for the loss of
her boy, so that this resemblance endeared Fani to her, while in Elsli's
case, a similar likeness to Nora had only made it the more difficult to
receive one who was brought to her to take Nora's place, while she was
still stunned with the grief of the recent parting.

Her first thought now was for Elsli. The doctor said that the child must
spend the next winter in a warmer climate, and recommended a removal to
the south of France