"Have I? You are like my mother now."
"But what if I were to tell you your very own mother is come, Joy?" And then, pointing to Maggie, she said, "There she is!"
The excitement and agitation was all on one side. The mother tried in vain to conceal her deep emotion. Joy, on the contrary, was quite calm, and said, looking at Patience—
"Is it true? is this my mother?"
"Yes, yes; your poor unhappy mother. Can you love her, little Joy? Can you forgive her for leaving you to Mr. Boyd?"
"Why, yes," Joy said brightly, "of course I can; he has been ever so good to me, and I do love him so."
Then Patience Harrison slipped away, and left the mother and the child together.
"The meeting is well over," she said as she returned to the shop.
"But the parting isn't over," was poor Uncle Bobo's lament; "and I tell you what, when it comes it will break my heart. I shan't have nothing left to live for; and the sooner I cut my cable the better."
Patience Harrison felt that it was useless to offer comfort just then, and she remembered Bet had not arrived as usual, and turned out of the row. Towards the market-place, on the way to Mrs. Skinner's cottage, she met George Paterson. His face brightened, as it always did, when they met.