"Marigold, my darling child," she said gently, bending over the little sufferer, who opened her dark eyes, and looked into her face with a faint smile, "did you hear a cab stop outside here a short while ago?"
"No, Aunt Pamela."
"Someone has arrived who is longing to see you, and who is going to help us to nurse you well again, I trust!"
"Mother?" Marigold inquired breathlessly. "Oh, tell her to come to me quickly—tell her—"
Miss Pamela moved towards the door as it was opened from without, and Mrs. Holcroft crossed the room noiselessly, and clasped her little girl in her arms. Neither spoke a word, but in the one backward glance that Miss Pamela ventured to take before she shut the door, she saw that Marigold's head was cradled on her mother's breast, and that her frail arms were clinging tightly around her mother's neck.
Miss Pamela stole softly away, and joined her sister in the next room.
"I feel so relieved Mrs. Holcroft has come," she confessed, with a sigh. "I have a strong presentiment that Marigold will recover now."
Miss Holcroft regarded her with a slight feeling of awe, for it was years since she had seen tears in Miss Pamela's bright dark eyes, and they looked suspiciously moist at that moment.
"What do you think of Marigold's mother, Pamela?" she asked, in a hesitating tone.
"She made me feel ashamed of myself," Miss Pamela acknowledged. "Did you notice how quiet she was, how, though she must have been longing to see the child, she would not go to her till she was quite composed? She never thought of her own feelings in the matter at all, only of what was best for Marigold."