"Yes, child; and I hope you will be like her in temper and sweetness of life."
"No one can be that; but what you say makes me very happy, aunt," I answered, caressing her hand.
"You started right away, then, when you got my letter?" she asked, toying with my hair.
"Yes, within an hour; but I can never forgive myself for going away as I did, giving you no chance to speak, and on my knees, dear aunt, I ask you to forgive me," I answered, slipping down beside her bed and wetting it with my tears, so sorrowing was my heart at her forlorn state.
"Don't kneel to me, dear one," she exclaimed, lifting me up. "We were all mistaken, you least of all; but my whole life has been a mistake, and from the very beginning. Wrapped up in my strivings, I thought not of my acts, nor heeded how they appeared to others, only knowing that I loved you all and labored that you might some day be the better for it. How mistakenly, though, and oh, how bitterly God has punished me, till at last my prayer is answered, and He has led you back to me."
"We were to blame, dear aunt, and should have read your heart better. Now how happy my mother must be, can she but hear your words and know your heart, for all her life long she wanted to win your love."
"I know it, and she had it above all others on earth; and yet, oh, God, forgive my pride and wayward moods! I would make no sign. Not even when she was about to die—but of that, merciful heaven, I did not dream!" she cried in agony, pressing her hands against her tear-stained face. Recovering after a while, she went on, but now more gently: "Tell me, sweet child, how it is that you who were once so slight, yet have your height and strength at scarce sixteen?"
"I don't know, dear aunt, unless, as I have heard, all our people were the same."
"Yes, your father had his growth at your age, and went about the world as if he were thirty." Then, as if hastening, she went on: "I hope your Uncle Job is well and happy. We greatly mistook him, and had you stayed with me, as I wanted, you would perhaps not have been the better for it. For you must know that all you have done, and all that has happened to you, I have known about as well as if I had been with you. This you will wonder at, but I have followed your wanderings as if you were my own son. My estrangement from your father and mother was all my fault, but I loved them none the less. When they died I thought to make some reparation by the care with which I would watch over your young life, but this failed, and unhappily, like all else. Then as I could not have you with me, I thought to watch over you and be near should you need my aid—not forcing myself upon you, but without your knowledge; and so your life since you left Wild Plum is known to me better than to any one save yourself."
"I never dreamed of that, dear aunt, nor was I worthy of it!" I answered, greatly affected by what she said.