"I suppose not," said Miss Lorraine, drily. "Well, child, I am glad that you are so pleased."
But as she spoke her face had a wistful, pained expression. Aldyth, since her babyhood, had been her care, and the feelings of a mother had grown up in her heart towards the child she had cherished. Could Eleanor Stanton, simply because she had given her birth, be so much more to Aldyth than the aunt who had comforted her childish sorrows and nursed her through all her childish ailments? Would she be as likely to understand the girl? Miss Lorraine felt aggrieved by the emotion Aldyth displayed, even whilst she told herself it was wrong and unreasonable to feel so.
But Aldyth, thrilled and excited, had no thoughts to spare for her aunt, and failed to see that she was hurt.
And Miss Lorraine was thankful that for once her niece was so unobservant.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
A LONG-DEFERRED HOPE IS REALIZED.
A FORTNIGHT later, on a raw, gloomy afternoon, Aldyth and her aunt stepped from a train on to the platform of Liverpool Street Station. A telegram received late on the previous evening had acquainted them with the fact that the Stanton family had arrived in London, and Aldyth was now on her way to meet her mother.
Aldyth's face was white and eager, and Miss Lorraine, too looked excited. Aldyth had been disposed to maintain silence all the way, and the journey had never seemed to her so tedious; but excitement had had the contrary effect on her aunt. Unchecked by her niece's reluctant rejoinders, she had talked the whole time, chiefly on matters of little or no importance. But when they were in a cab, driving to the West-end hotel where the Stantons were to be found, Miss Lorraine, too, became silent, and her eyes were often turned upon her niece with a rather anxious expression.
It was no new thing to Aldyth to be in London. She and her aunt not seldom came up for a day's shopping in town, or gave themselves a few days' enjoyment of sight-seeing. They found such delight in the pleasures of town as only country people can, to whose ordinary experience it offers so sharp a contrast.
But to-day Aldyth had no eyes for the shop windows, nor for the beautiful equipages they met as they drove westwards. She saw nothing that they passed. There was a strange combination of thoughts—if thoughts they could be called—in her heart. Every now and then tears would rise to her eyes as she told herself how happy she was going to be. Life must be different for her from henceforth. All she had known or read or dreamed of a mother's love was to be realized at last. She started as from a dream and flushed crimson when her aunt suddenly laid her hand on her arm.