The bell ceased tolling, the congregation were gathered, the hour of service had come, and the clergyman rose in the pulpit.
But at that moment the lady drew aside her veil; and ere Dr. Parker had opened his lips, a little voice rang through the still church.
"Mamma! Oh, my own mamma!"
How much was in those few words! What a tale they told! What a world of longing, of love, of joy, they held!
The stranger lady—ah! no stranger was she to our Daisy—started to her feet, stretched out her hands, then with a little cry sank fainting into the arms of the gentleman who had also suddenly arisen.
She was carried out; General and Mrs. Forster following with the excited, trembling Daisy; and so the father and mother found the long-lost child.
Who could describe it? Who could find words for the joy, the wonder, the gratitude of those concerned; who tell the sympathy which filled the hearts of all in that congregation, which dimmed their eyes with tears, and filled their hearts with adoration, as, before another word of the morning service was begun, the beloved minister called on all to render thanks for the great and signal mercy just shown to those long-parted parents and their little one!
And now there is little more to tell. Only how Daisy's mamma, and the little sister whom she remembered only as a tiny baby, had been rescued from the sinking ship with some of the other passengers; how, having been unable to trace their lost treasure, and believing that the boat, with all whom it contained, had gone down in the deep waters, the parents had gone abroad, where they had remained till a few months before this time, and so had never seen the advertisements which might have told them she was still living: all this was soon explained.
And then Daisy must tell her story, and Betty must come in to help her out where memory failed and the past was a blank, because of that long, wasting illness. And how Betty laughed and cried by turns, and would hear of no praise or thanks for what she had done, declaring that "Miss Daisy had done her and Jack far more good nor she resaved, taching them to mind their tongues afore God Almighty."