“Yes, yes; and she has come all the way to bring my child to me!  No, I cannot wait:  I will come with you.”

So Mr. Burroughs, still sitting upon the piazza, saw his cousin hastening by, and came to join her.

“Yes, come, Tom! come to-oh, to see Sunshine again!” and Mrs. Legrange turned her flushed face away, to hide the hysterical agitation she could not quite suppress.

“Take my arm, Fanny; and do not walk so fast.  You will hurt yourself,” said Mr. Burroughs kindly.

“No, no:  nothing can hurt me now.  I must go fast:  if I had wings, I should fly!”

“Here is the house.  Will you wait in the parlor till I bring her down?” asked Teddy, leading the way up the steps of the principal hotel at Yellow Springs.

“No:  take me to the room where they are waiting.  I want to see her without preparation,” said Mrs. Legrange.

So the whole party followed Teddy up the stairs to a door, where he paused and knocked.  A low voice said,—­

“Come in!” and the opening door showed Dora seated upon a low chair, with Sunshine clasped in her arms, and fast asleep.  She made a motion to rise upon seeing the visitors; but Mrs. Legrange, lifting her finger as imploring silence softly advanced, and bent with clasped hands and eager eyes over the sleeping child.  Then, with the graceful instinct of a woman who knows and pities the wound in the heart of her less fortunate rival, she put her arms about Dora and the child, embracing both, and pressed her lips lightly upon Dora’s cheek, devouringly upon Sunshine’s lips.

Dora started as if she had been stung, and a sudden tremor crossed the rigid calm of her demeanor.  She had schooled herself to indifference, to neglect or to civil thanks worse than either:  but this unexpected tenderness, this sisterly recognition, went straight through all its defences to her quivering heart; and she looked up piteously into the lovely face bent over her, whispering,—­

“I am so glad you have found her! but I have nothing left half so dear.”

There was no reply; for Sunshine, without sound or movement, suddenly opened her eyes, and fixed them upon her mother’s face, while deep in their blue depths grew a glad smile, breaking at last, like a veritable sungleam, all over her face, as, holding out her arms, she eagerly said,—­

“I’ve come to heaven while I was asleep; and you’re the angel that loves me so dearly well.  I know you by your eyes.”

“The mother clasped her own,—­as who shall blame her?-and Dora’s arms and Dora’s heart were empty, robbed of the nestling they had cherished,—­empty, as she said to herself, turning from the sight of that maternal bliss, of the best love she had ever known, or could ever hope.”

Mr. Burroughs, who liked character-reading, watched her narrowly; and when, presently, the whole party returned to Mrs. Legrange’s hotel, he quietly walked beside Dora, lingering a little, and detaining her out of hearing of Mrs. Legrange and Teddy, who walked on with Sunshine between them.