“My pet!” he said, “always in too much of a hurry. This would have been a sad meeting for papa, if you had fallen; but a good God took care of you for me.”
Belle clung about his neck and did not speak; for whether it were the fright, or the sight of her father, or the return to the old home which she had left at such a sad time, or perhaps all three, her feelings took a sudden turn, and when Mr. Powers had brought his friends in and welcomed them, and raised the little face to kiss it again, he found it drowned in tears.
“Why! my darling,” he said, “were you so frightened?”
“I don’t know, papa,” sobbed the excitable little thing; “but, this is home—only—only—mamma is not in it.”
Tears, or something very like them, came to the eyes of all, even of Mr. and Mrs. Norris, who had never known Belle’s dead mother; and Mr. Powers turned hastily away, and stepped with her out on the veranda.
“Only mamma was not in it!” Ah, yes! that was the only that made all the difference in the world, so that home did not seem like home any longer.
It was some few moments before either of them were composed enough to return; and when Mr. Powers came back he was alone, and told Bessie that Belle wanted her to go to her.
Bessie went out upon the veranda, which ran on all four sides of the house, and around the corner she found Belle curled up on a settee where her father had placed her. She stretched out her arms to Bessie when she saw her, saying,—
“Bessie, I do remember mamma so much in my home, and you are a comfit. You are my next best comfit to papa, ever since the first day you spoke to me in school.”