"Named 'Becca'?"
She started; then a flash of recognition lit up her soft eyes.
"Can you be—? I think you must be the Mr. Tracy that brought such sunshine into my childish days. Now I know why I have felt so strangely at home with you from the first moment you spoke to me."
A RECOGNITION.
Her face was radiant, and Rufus said with slight embarrassment, "I can hardly believe I am speaking to the identical little Greta, and yet you are strangely the same in voice and manner. I often wondered if I should ever meet my child-friend again; how long ago it seems!"
There was much to ask and explain. Greta's story was simply told.
"At my mother's death her relations came forward at once. She had offended them by marrying my father, who was a struggling country doctor; and after his death she was too proud to go to them for help. Rebecca wrote to my aunt, Lady Chatterton, the day after my mother was taken from us; and she responded as soon as she was able, for she was abroad at the time. Rebecca and I went to her town house, and from there I was sent to a boarding-school. I used to spend my holidays alternately with Lady Chatterton and Mrs. Warren, with whom I am staying now. But my home is now supposed to be with Lady Chatterton."
"Your vocation in life is not that to which you used to look forward," said Rufus, with a smile.
"I sometimes wish it were," was the quiet response. "I have a longing to be up and doing. And yet I suppose we are never placed in any sphere where we cannot be a help to some one."