"Yes, almost as good as you," said Milly, throwing her arms about his neck.
The doctor stroked the clustering curls from her forehead, and whispered, "Suppose, Milly, you were to hear that you had a real mother, like other little girls, such as you were talking about the other day?"
Her bright blue eyes opened with a sudden look of intelligence, or returning memory. "I had a mamma once, think," she said.
"Do you remember anything about her?" asked Dr. Mansfield.
The little girl shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I can remember a soldier carrying me to a big ship, and then going away."
"That must have been your papa, I think," said the doctor.
"My papa! How do you know that?" asked Milly.
"Because I have just heard something about it. Milly, would you be very glad to see your papa and mamma again?" asked the doctor slowly, almost sadly.
The little girl clapped her hands with delight. "O yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "I think my papa was a soldier, and my mamma a beautiful lady, that was always ill. But there were black people where we lived," she suddenly said.
The doctor had little doubt before but that this little waif the sea had cast up at his door was his cousin's long-lost daughter, and these sudden flashes of light on the all-but-forgotten past that came to Milly's mind did but confirm it. And he felt sure now that he should have to yield his place—the first place in the little girl's affection—to another.