"O, yes, you have!" cried Helen. "Only you didn't know what it was. You remember when cousin James stood up with Sarah Churchill?"
"And she cried so when they were bidding her good by?"
"Yes, that was a wedding."
"Once I was a boy like Walter," added Mr. Dermott, "and lived at home with my father and mother. Your mother was younger than you are, and lived nearly a mile distant. By and by, as I grew up, I wanted some young lady, who knew about housekeeping, to come and take care of me. There were a great many young ladies in the town, and a great many more in the city where I was doing business; but somehow I liked your mother the best, and thought, if she would consent to leave her parents, brothers, and sisters, I would purchase a house, and we would have a home of our own."
"And did she?" eagerly asked the child, fixing upon her father a pair of bright blue eyes.
Mr. Dermott gave his wife a glance of affection; and Helen exclaimed, "Why, yes, we know she did, or else she would not have been here now."
"I hope no one will ask me to go away," said Isabelle with a deep sigh. "I should not like to go away from home."
"Of course they won't while you are a little girl," remarked Walter in a comforting tone.
"I was very glad that she said yes," continued the gentleman; "indeed, I don't know what would have become of me if she had refused, for I could think of no one else, among all my friends, who would do as well."
Helen caught her mother's hand, and pressed it enthusiastically to her lips.