“Hush, dear, just for a little,—I cannot speak long. It was a stormy day, and few boats would go out. However, there was on the beach a woman who was also very eager to catch the vessel. Together they managed to get a boat, and embarked—this lady I speak of—the woman and a little girl.”
Agatha listened with painful avidity.
“It was not the woman's own child, or she could not have been so careless of it It was tossed into the bottom of the boat, and lay there crying. The lady felt sorry for it, and took it in her arms. They had gone but a little way from the shore when it was playing about her, quite happy again. While playing—she looking at the ship, and not watching the little thing as she ought to have done—the child fell overboard.”
A loud sob burst from Agatha.
“Hush, still hush, my darling! The child was saved. The ship sailed away, but the child—you know that she was saved. I am thankful to God it was so!”
Anne wrapped her arms tightly round the sobbing girl, and after a few moments she also wept.
“I remember it all now,” cried Agatha, as soon as she found words—“the shore, the headlands, the bay. I was that little child, and it was you who saved me!”
Anne made no answer but by pressing her closer.
“I felt it the first moment I ever saw you. I never forgot you—never! But how did you know me?”
“Was I likely ever to lose sight of that little child? And also, years before, I had once or twice met your father—though this would have been nothing. But from that day I felt that you belonged to me. And now, since you are become a Harper, you do.”