"He is sure to come," said Mattie; "pray sit down again, and Ann shall make us tea. Harriet, that man is my father."
"Do you really think so?"
"It was all a truth that that horrible woman told me on the day the house was robbed; he has been in search of me; he has found me at last—I shall not be alone in the world ever again!"
"You are glad then, Mattie?"
"Why should I not be?" asked our heroine; "I think that he is a good man—I think that he must have cared for me a little, to have taken so much trouble in his search for me—he will come back soon, and then we shall know all."
"He comes back to your gain and my loss," Harriet was on the point of saying, but checked herself; Mattie was excited enough without the cares of her friend to be added to her own.
It was a silent, thoughtful meal; Ann Packet, absorbed in gloomy reverie, took her tea with stony apathy. She could see that changes were coming towards her also, and the shape that they might assume was hard to guess at. She should lose Mattie perhaps, and that was sufficient to disturb her.
Tea was over, and Mattie had returned to her easy-chair, when a faint rapping was heard at the outer-door. Ann Packet went to the door, and found the preacher there, as she had anticipated.
"Is she prepared—has she guessed?"
"Yes."