woman, in the costume of a nurse, turned to look at me as I
entered, but I did not at first see my mother, and when at length I did
see her, with her eyes closed, she looked so white and small as to be
almost hidden in the big white bed.

Presently Father Dan came in, followed by Doctor Conrad and Aunt
Bridget, and finally my father, who was in his shirt sleeves and had a
pen in his ear, I remember.

Then Father Dan, who was trembling very much, took me by the hand and
led me to my mother's side, where stooping over her, and making his
voice very low, yet speaking as one who was calling into a long tunnel,
he said:

"My daughter! My daughter! Here is our little Mary. She has come home to
see you."

Never shall I forget what followed. First, my mother's long lashes
parted and she looked at me with a dazed expression as if still in a
sort of dream. Then her big eyes began to blaze like torches in dark
hollows, and then (though they had thought her strength was gone and her
voice would never be heard again) she raised herself in her bed,
stretched out her arms to me, and cried in loud strong tones:

"Mally veen! My Mally veen!"

How long I lay with my arms about my mother, and my mother's arms about
me I do not know. I only know that over my head I heard Father Dan
saying, as if speaking to a child:

"You are happy now, are you not?"

"Yes, yes, I am happy now," my mother answered.

"You have everything you want?"

"Everything--everything!"

Then came my father's voice, saying:

"Well, you've got your girl, Isabel. You wanted her, so we sent for her,
and here she is."

"You have been very good to me, Daniel," said my mother, who was kissing
my forehead and crying in her joy.

When I raised my head I found Father Dan in great excitement.

"Did you see that then?" he was saying to Doctor Conrad.

"I would have gone on my knees all the way to Blackwater to see it."

"I couldn't have believed it possible," the Doctor replied.

"Ah, what children we are, entirely. God confounds all our reckoning. We
can't count with His miracles. And the greatest of all miracles is a
mother's love for her child."

"Let us leave her now, though," said the Doctor. "She's like herself
again, but still . . ."

"Yes, let us leave them together," whispered Father Dan, and having
swept everybody out before him (I thought Aunt Bridget went away
ashamed) he stepped off himself on tiptoe, as if treading on holy
ground.

Then