"My name is not Midge," I said to her.
"Then it ought to have been, you mite of a thing!"
"My name is Margaret; it was Mamma's name."
Miss O'Reilly dropped my hand, and rose somewhat abruptly. Then she took my hand again and said calmly—
"Come, child, you look dusty and tired, after your journey."
She led me upstairs to a cheerful-looking bed-room, where she unpacked my wardrobe, and changed my whole attire, with a prompt dexterity that seemed natural to her. When we returned to the parlour we found Cornelius lying at full length on a sofa drawn before the hearth; a dark cushion pillowed his handsome head; the flickering fire-light played on his face. His sister went up to him at once; she passed her white hand in his dark hair, and bending over him, said tenderly, as if speaking to a child—
"Poor boy! you are tired."
He shook his head, and laughed up in her face.
"Not a bit, Kate. Where is she?"
He half raised his head to look for me; signed me to approach, and made room for me on the sofa. I sat down and looked at him and his sister, who stood lingering there, smiling silently over him, and still passing her slender fingers in his luxuriant hair. The light fell on their two faces, almost equally handsome, and to which their striking resemblance gave a charm beyond that of mere contrast. To trace in both the same symmetrical outlines of form and feature, was to recognize the loveliness of nature's gifts, received and perpetuated for generations in the same race; and to look at them thus in their familiar tenderness, was to feel the beauty and holiness of kindred blood. Child as I was, I was moved with the tender sweetness of Miss O'Reilly's smile; it preceded however a question more kind than romantic.