aint sound her mother
made on entering she started up.

'Mamma, mamma!' she cried, as Mrs Mildmay knelt down and threw her arms
round the little figure. 'My own little mamma, my own, my own! to think
it _is_ you, to think I really and truly have you. Oh, can I _ever_ be
so happy again! Oh, mamma darling, I don't know _how_ to thank God
enough; that was what I was thinking about when you came in. No, no, you
didn't wake me. I haven't been asleep.'

'My darling, my own little girl!' whispered Mrs Mildmay.

'Mamma dear,' Frances went on, after a moment's beautiful silence. 'I
feel already that I can tell you _everything_. Now there's one thing;
it's come into my mind again since I've been in bed; I'm afraid I forgot
about it in the first _rush_ of happiness, you know, but now I've
remembered. Mamma, don't you think when we're awfully happy we should
try to do something for other people--that God means us to? Well, it's
about the Harpers. Oh, mamma, I'm afraid they are having such very bad
troubles just now.'

Mrs Mildmay started a little.

'You don't mean, dear--you haven't heard anything _quite_ lately, about
the father, Captain Harper, have you?'

'No,' said Frances, 'I've not heard anything. Miss Falmouth was the only
girl who knew about them away from school, and she has left. But you
remember I wrote to you that Bessie and Margaret mightn't come back, and
they haven't. And I'm _sure_ it's because they've got poorer with their
father being so ill. Mamma, did you hear anything more from their aunt
before you left?'

'Yes,' said Mrs Mildmay sadly. 'I heard a good deal. All there is to
hear, indeed. A letter from the eldest daughter, Camilla Harper--the one
who wrote to you--came to Mrs Lyle just before I left. She showed it to
me. I am afraid it is as you say, Francie; they have very heavy troubles
and anxieties indeed.'

'And _don't_ you think they're good, really very good people, mamma?'
asked the child eagerly.

'I think they seem quite wonderfully good,' said her mother, warmly. 'I
cannot understand; I mean I can scarcely realise, how they can all be so
brave and cheerful, when one thing after another--one misfortune after
another--has come to try them so terribly. Yes, it almost frightens me
to think of our happiness in comparison with their troubles, Francie.'

'But mamma,' and Frances hesitated. 'If we can do anything to help them?
Wouldn't that make it seem _righter_? I mean as if we were meant to do