The little party were coming up the garden walk and Mrs. Gaylord arose to meet them. With a bound and a cry of pleasure Lily sprang into the open arms ready to receive her.
"O Lily, Lily, my darling!" exclaimed the sweet voice, while the lips that spoke these words were kissing brow and cheek passionately. Willie was hitching himself over the green grass towards them. "You are changed! How very sick you must have been!" and she held the weeping girl off at arm's length that she might look at her. "Get yourself ready, as the carriage must be back to the hotel in three hours and it is nearly two already." She stepped forward and clasped the cripple's extended hand. "It makes me more happy than I can tell to meet you both again. You will go with us? I so pine for one of our old talks duplicated. Frank, help Willie to the carriage." And she turned to find that Lily had disappeared, and in her place stood the veritable Mrs. Hopkins.
"I do not want you to think," she said, meekly, "that I am not willing that you should be her friend, but I do think that if you are, you will advise her to remain in her present home, where she seems to have been placed, and not attempt to be what she is not or ever can be!"
Lily's appearance put an end to further conversation, and without a moment's delay the horses were turned towards the village.
"You see I have changed my plumage," Lily said with a smile. "I returned to Boston with a very small wardrobe, only what had been provided for me at the hospital by some kind visitors, and Willie out of his little accumulations insisted upon this French lawn, which I keep for my 'dress-up.' It is very pretty, is it not?"
"Yes, but it seems to me that you have not 'picked up' as much as you ought in three months. You are looking much thinner than I had thought of finding you!"
"It is such a mystery! I cannot sleep! That voice in the darkness under the trees that called me so feebly and with such perfect indifference! This haunts me whenever I close my eyes. The whole scene; the masked face, the rolling billows, the sound of the huge waves as they dashed against the rocks; all, all terrify and distract me! How can the flesh ever creep back upon my bones or the color to my cheek or lips? O that terrible night! Its horrors even as I recall them well nigh curdle my blood!"
"Poor child!" But Willie interrupted them.
"It is only two years, or a little more, since we rode together over this road. Dear old Rover; he must have one drive to the village before he returns to his city life. I do not think he likes it as well as his master, Mrs. Gaylord," he continued, with an air of pleasantry.
"We understand you, Willie," Lily laughed, wholly recalled from her dark remembrances. "Two years, and very eventful ones too; but Rover must have his pleasure now as well as we."