“We shall be at home on Wednesday evening, at six o’clock, and shall bring some guests.  You will please prepare tea for eight persons; and make up five beds, three of them single ones.  Tell Susan to make the house look as pretty as she can; and send for any thing she or you need in the way of preparation.  “F.  Legrange”

“An’ faith it’s this minute they’re coomin!’ Look at the jaantin’-cars fur down the road!”

“One’s a carryall, and the other’s a rockaway,” said Susan sententiously.

“Musha, an’ what’s the odds if they’re one thing or the other, so they bring the purty misthress back halesomer than she wint?  That’s her in the first car:  I know her white bonnet with the blue ribbon.”

“Yes, there’s Mr. and Mrs. Legrange, and a strange lady and gentleman; and the other carriage are all strangers, except Mr. Burroughs.  Those young ladies are pretty; ain’t they?”

But Mrs. Ginniss was already at the gate, courtesying and beaming:—­

“Ye’re wilcoom home, missus and masther; an’ it’s in health an’ pace I hope yees coom.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Ginniss.  We are very well indeed, I believe,” said Mr. Legrange, rather nervously, as he jumped from the carriage and helped out his wife, and then Kitty and Mr. Brown.  From the other carriage, meantime, had alighted, without the good woman’s observation, Mr. Burroughs, Dora, Karl, and another, who, the moment her feet touched the ground, ran forward, crying,—­

“O mamma!  I’ve been at this home before.”

At the sound, Mrs. Ginniss turned, dropping the shawls, bags, and parasols she held, in one mass at her feet, and then dropping herself upon her knees in their midst; while her fresh face turned of a ghastly yellow, and her uplifted hands shook visibly,—­

“Glory be to God, an’ what’s that!” exclaimed she in a voice of terror.

“Oh, it’s mammy, it’s mammy! that used to rock me in her lap, and hold my feet, and sing to me!  I ’member her now, and Teddy said so too.  O mammy!  I’m so glad you’ve come again!”

The sobbing woman opened wide her arms; and Sunshine leaped into them, shouting again and again,—­

“It’s the good old mammy! and I’m so glad, I’m so glad!”

“O Mrs. Legrange! is it?” exclaimed an agitated voice; and Mrs. Legrange, turning, found Susan standing beside her with pale face and clasped hands, her eyes fixed upon the child with a sort of terror.

“Yes, Susan, it is ’Toinette, her very self.  I would not write, because I wanted to see if she would know you both, and you her.”

“Oh, thank God! thank God!  I didn’t believe I’d ever forgive myself for not minding her better; but now I may.  Miss ’Toinette, dear, won’t you speak to Susan?”

“Susan!” exclaimed the child, struggling out of Mrs. Ginniss’s embrace, and leaving that good woman still exploding in a feu-de-joie of thanksgiving, emotion, and astonishment.  “Are you Susan?  Why, that was a doll!”