“You must come and share my room,” Mrs. Barrington said to Lilian.
“Oh, she really doesn’t seem any different to me,” the girl returned. “She has slept so much the last few days, and it is what we have expected. God has taken her in His keeping and she will have those belonging to her. It is a blessed thought.”
She sat reading by the window when the Crawford phæton drove up. Her first feeling was that she could not meet her father. But a young man sprang out and the coachman took charge of the horses.
“It is your brother,” announced Mrs. Barrington. “Oh, do try and see him. Your mother wishes it so much.”
Lilian went down and was clasped to her mother’s heart and held there many seconds.
“This is your brother Willard, who is soon to leave for Washington and he begged so much to see a little of you. His will be a three years’ cruise, and I am doubly glad to have found another child in view of his long absence.”
Lilian glanced up. It was such a frank, kindly face, too young yet for any of his father’s sternness.
“Oh, my dear, I wonder if you will ever understand how precious you are going to be to us all. It is like one raised from the dead. I shall go away with a lighter heart, seeing that mother and father have you. We boys have been so much to the house with our stirring interests; now it will be you and Zaidee. I shall think of you so often. Why, I can readily believe any fairy story, and it almost breaks father’s heart that you have been so near all these months and none of us known it. You will not feel hurt if he sometimes should show a little—” he paused with a flush. “For after all it might have been her child who was saved——” and she felt the shiver go over him.
“And to know that you were loved all these years,” said the mother holding out her arms, and both children went to them. “And that you never really suffered for anything. Sometimes I hardly dare believe in and accept this great blessing.”
“Oh, I hope I will prove a blessing,” Lilian said, with a great tremble in her voice. “You are so good to take me in, to love and trust me, knowing so little about me.”