In a moment more Floy stood before her.
The Madame gave a cry of mingled joy and surprise, and held out her arms.
“Is it you—you? oh, I am glad! I am the happiest woman alive!”
Floy knelt down by her side and suffered herself to be enfolded by the stout arms, pressed against the broad breast, kissed and cried over.
She had meditated upon Madame’s sufferings from loneliness and disease till her heart was melted with pity. She had thought upon the fact that the same blood flowed in their veins—that this was the sister, the only, and probably dearly loved, sister of the unknown yet beloved mother of whom she was in quest—till a feeling akin to affection had sprung up within her.
“My poor dear aunt,” she whispered, twining her arms about the Madame’s neck and imprinting a kiss upon her lips, “what a dreary, lonely life you have had! God helping me, I will make it happier than it has been.”
“Ah, yes, child!” returned her new-found relative, repeating her caress with added tenderness; “and you, you poor darling! shall never have to toil for your bread any more. Ah, what a delight it will be to me to lavish on you every desirable thing that money can buy! It is Miss Kemper, but it is my little Pansy too; did I not see the likeness from the first?” and the tears coursed down the Madame’s swarthy cheeks.
“Why do you call me that?” asked Floy.
“It was my pet name for my sister. She was so sweet and pretty, so modest, gentle, and retiring. And she called me Tulip, because, as she said, my beauty was gorgeous, like that of the flower. You would not think it now; there’s not a trace of it left,” she added, with a heavy sigh and a rueful glance into a pier-glass opposite.
It was all quite true. Nannette Gramont (that was the Madame’s maiden name) had a sylph-like form, a rich brunette complexion, sparkling eyes, ruby lips, a countenance and manners full of vivacity and mirth.