“Poor thing, it is the homesickness; he will soon get over it.”
But weeks passed, and Eddie did not get over his homesickness. He grew pale and quiet, but that sensitive baby-heart was desolate as ever. Visitors were, in those days, only admitted to the children once a month, consequently Mary Margaret did not see her child during these weeks of anguish.
One day, when the little creature was becoming dreamily passive, a strange gentleman and lady entered the baby’s nursery as they passed over the institution. They were both young and of singularly aristocratic appearance. Certainly there was nothing in the lady that reminded you of Mary Margaret Dillon, but the heart sometimes finds strange likenesses. When Eddie looked up, the lady’s back was toward him. She was about the size of his nurse; this must have been all, but it was enough.
The child let himself down from his seat and ran toward the lady, his bright eyes flashing, his hands extended, and his soft brown curls all afloat.
“Mammy, mammy, take me,” he cried, making ineffectual leaps to reach her arms.
The lady turned her face—a beautiful face, in nothing like Mary Margaret’s, save that it was bright with kindly surprise.
The child dropped his eager hands with a look of pitiful disappointment that touched her to the soul.
“Who is this?” she said, as the little creature crept, broken-hearted, back to hide himself among the other children. “Tell me, what poor child is this that mistakes me for his mother?”
She blushed as she spoke, and turned her eyes shyly from the look of half interest, half of amusement which her husband turned upon her.
“Come here, darling, let me talk with you,” she said, following the child. “Tell me your name.”