“I think so, ma’am. Heaven knows I hope so; but the old days when I knew are over. Won’t you come into the sitting-room, please?”
I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt that it might ease her sad heart to break its silence; so I followed her into the familiar room. It, at least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were there, and the low easy-chairs, and the pretty trifles; and yet, somehow, the room seemed cold, for the beauty which had gladdened it last year had gone for ever.
“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked; and I know the real sympathy I felt must have sounded in my voice.
“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said, “a lady was driving by, and she saw my sign. She sent her footman to the door to see if the place was really what that said; and the next day she came in herself and brought a whole load of broken toys. She said she wanted these things put in order to take into the country, for they were favorite playthings of her little girl’s.
“I turned then and looked at the child who had come in with her mother. I can never tell you how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone back six years. Just what my darling was when she came to me, this little girl was now,—the very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair, and the pretty, pink-and-white face.
“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the hospital, and when the lady saw her, she stood and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady Jane, and then again at the little girl; and true as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady Jane’s mother and sister before ever a word was spoken. I felt my knees shaking under me, and I held fast to the counter to keep from falling. I couldn’t have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.
“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long time; and then she walked up to my darling and touched the locket that she wore on her neck. At last she turned to me and asked, with a little sternness in her gentle voice, if I would tell her who this girl was, and how I came by her.
“So I told her the whole story, just as I had told it to you, and before I had finished, she was crying as if her heart would break. Down she went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her arms around her, and cried,—
“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were dead! I am your mother—oh, believe me, my darling! Love me a little, a little,—after all these years!’
“And just as properly as if she had gone through it all in her mind a hundred times beforehand, Lady Jane answered,—