"Oh, Miss Stella, that's a mistake! Rich or poor it's the same if one's heart is in the right place. Now, go to sleep like a good girl, and I'll sit with you for a while."
Stella closed her eyes obediently, and was soon fast asleep. Sarah, who loved her dearly, watched by her for some time, and then, feeling assured that her slumber was deep and untroubled, softly left the room.
When the morning dawned the blinds of the house were closely drawn, the inmates moved with hushed footsteps and spoke in whispered accents, for the mistress lay with the majesty of death upon her, and Stella was motherless.
[CHAPTER III]
STELLA'S ARRIVAL AMONG HER COUNTRY COUSINS
A WEEK later excitement reigned in Dr. Knight's usually quiet household. The children had a holiday in honour of the stranger expected that day—their cousin Stella, who for the future was to make her home with them.
Singularly enough, Dr. Knight had been left Stella's guardian by the woman who in the days of her prosperity and health had always regarded him with dislike. When upon her sick-bed she had been told she must face death, she had thought over the list of her so-called friends, and because they had been of the world worldly, she had hesitated to entrust one of them with her little daughter, and the fortune that would be hers. Then her thoughts had reverted to her dead husband's brother. He had never approved of her; nevertheless she had trusted him. With the world slipping away from her she had instinctively turned to the only man of her acquaintance with whom she knew the world was of little account; and to him she had confided her child's future, conscious that she was acting as her dead husband would have desired. And so it was that the one who had stood by Stella's father in death, had ministered to her mother also when her turn had come to enter the valley of shadows.
It had been arranged when the funeral was over, and business matters satisfactorily settled, that Stella should return home with her uncle. This plan pleased Stella greatly, for she had taken a great liking to Dr. Knight, and was curious and eager to know the aunt and cousins she had never seen.
It must be confessed that Stella's grief for her mother's death was not very great; it could hardly have been otherwise, for the dead woman had paid little attention, lavished little tenderness on her daughter. Stella had always been gaily dressed, and encouraged to think a great deal of the luxuries money can buy. She had been brought up with the one idea that she must look pretty, and be very quiet in her mother's presence, the consequence being that she had a rather reserved manner, and a little air of artificiality about her.
As the time drew near for the arrival of the travellers, the doctor's children stationed themselves inside the window of their mother's room, which commanded a view of the road, and talked expectantly of their cousin.