“Ah,” she sighed, sinking back again, “it was a dream, only a dream! I shall never see her more! My darling, oh, my darling! How could I be so cruel, so cruel! Pansy, Pansy! And I am so lonely, so lonely! with not a soul in the wide world to care for me!”
Sobs and tears came thick and fast; then she rose, slowly crossed the room, turned up the gas, and unlocking her jewel-box, took from it a small, plain gold locket attached to a slender chain.
It opened with a touch, showing a sweet, sunny child face, with smiling lips, soft, wavy brown hair, and large, dark, lustrous eyes.
The Madame wept anew as she gazed upon it, and her broad breast heaved with sigh after sigh.
“So many years! so many years!” she moaned, “and my search has been all in vain. Ah, dear one, are you yet in the land of the living? My darling, my darling!” and the tears fell in floods.
But at length growing calmer, she restored the trinket to its place, turned down the gas, and staggering to an easy chair beside the window, dropped heavily into it.
Her breath came pantingly, the tears still stood in her eyes. She wiped them away, and drawing aside the curtain, looked into the street.
The moon had not yet risen, but the lamps were lighted, and there was a clear, starlit sky. She could see the passers-by as they hurried on their way, now singly, now in groups of two or more; mostly well, or at least comfortably, clad, and carrying brown-paper parcels suggestive of the coming festivities.
A confectionery on the opposite corner was ablaze with light, showing a tempting array of sweets in the windows. It was crowded with customers, and there was a constant passing in and out of cheerful-looking men and women and bright-eyed, eager children.
Presently a slender figure, apparently that of a very young girl, very shabbily dressed in faded calico and with an old shawl thrown over her head caught the Madame’s attention.