recorded. Aunt Barbara was waiting for Betty
to answer, and she turned her head at last, just as a low, rapid step
glided across the floor, and a voice, which thrilled every vain, first
with a sudden fear, and then with a joy unspeakable, said, "Aunt
Barbara, it's I. It's Ethie, come back to you again. Is she
welcome here?"

Was she welcome? Answer, the low cry, and gasping sob, and outstretched
arms, which held the wanderer in so loving an embrace, while a rain of
tears fell upon the dear head from which the bonnet had fallen back as
Ethelyn sank upon her knees before Aunt Barbara. Neither could talk much
for a few moments. Certainly not Aunt Barbara, who sat bewildered and
stupefied while Ethelyn, more composed, removed her hat, and cloak, and
overshoes, and shook out the folds of her damp dress; and then drawing a
little covered stool to Aunt Barbara's side, sat down upon it, and
leaning her elbows on Aunt Barbara's lap, looked up in her face, with
the old, mischievous, winning smile, and said, "Auntie, have you
forgiven your Ethie for running away?"

Then it began to seem real again--began to seem as if the last six years
were blotted out, and things restored to what they were when Ethie was
wont to sit at her aunt's feet as she was sitting now. There was this
difference, however; the bright, round, rosy face, which used to look so
flushed, and eager, and radiant, and assured, was changed, and the one
confronting Aunt Barbara now was pale, and thin, and worn, and there
were lines across the brow, and the eyes were heavy and tired, and a
little uncertain and anxious in their expression as they scanned the
sweet old face above them. Aunt Barbara saw it all, and this, if nothing
else, would have brought entire pardon even had she been inclined to
withhold it, which she was not. Ethie was back again, and that was
enough for her. She would not chide or blame her ever so little, and her
warm, loving hands took the thin white face and held it while she kissed
the parted lips, the blue-veined forehead, and the hollow cheeks,
whispering: "My own darling. I am so glad to have you back. I have been
so sad without you, and mourned for you so much, fearing you were dead.
Where has my darling been that none of us could find you?"

"Did you hunt, Aunt Barbara? Did you really hunt for me?"

And something of Ethie's old self leaped into her eyes and flushed into
her cheeks as she asked the question.

"Yes, darling. All the spr