"Maria!" whispered the old lady, hoarsely, clutching at Rose's dress—"Maria, tell her you love me, Maria."
"I do—I do!" sobbed Rose, unable to restrain herself, as she threw her arms around her.
"Love that lunatic? What should you love her for, I'd like to know?" asked the startled Dolly.
"Because she is my grandmother—my own dear grandmother. Oh Aunt Dolly! hate me, if you will, but love her; she will not live long to trouble any body," and Rose kissed the furrowed temples and stroked back the thin gray locks.
"Well, if I ever!" said Dolly, looking innocent; "I believe the whole world is going mad! Come along, Betty."
"Maria! Maria!" whispered the old lady, again nestling up to Rose.
"There, you see, she is quite out; she fancies you are somebody she has seen before."
"No—she takes me for Maria, my mother," said Rose; "you say that I look like her exactly."
"Come along, Betty!" said the infuriated Mrs. Howe. "Mother and grandmother! you are both as mad as March hares," and seizing "Betty" by the arm, she drew her across the entry into her own den, and turning the key on her, put it in her pocket, and went down into the dining-room.
We have no desire to record her reflections as she sat down to "Moses in the Bulrushes," upon which she had already expended pounds and pounds of German worsted, and who, if ever found by his mother "Miriam," would scarcely have been recognized.