“Well, Deborah, then, you shall see your people and choose for yourself, and—and—God bless you!”
Molly.
“Rounded into perfect maidenly beauty.”
Debby saw her people—sturdy wealthy folk they were, who offered her a home and place where her mother as a girl lived and loved.
And she, in return, very tenderly told to the widowed mother of the boy who had died afar, the story of bravery and tragedy.
“He was your own cousin, child, and you took his life!” The words rang shrilly through the quiet room as the tale ended.
“He tried to take mine. He wounded me sorely twice.” Even in her grief poor Debby tried to defend herself as she had always done in her honest fashion; “and he—took—my father from—me!”
The black robed figure straightened at the words and the empty arms outstretched to the shrinking girl:
“Oh! my child! my poor child! do not look at me like that! So looked your mother when we turned her from her home. Ah! lass, had I but clung to her I might have been spared all this!”
The arms were no longer empty. Hungry, starving Debby rushed to fill her mother’s place!