“I must talk. I feel just like it, and the words will choke me if I do not let them out. I have thought of Rena all day just as I always do at Christmas time. It’s eight years to-night since the fire, and I loved her so much; she was so sweet and pretty, with a look in her eyes like Rena Harris, whom I love for her sake. Darling sister, I see her now as she prayed for a big fire to warm her and Ruthy, as warm as toast, and God sent the fire and burned my precious sister up. Oh, George, does he always answer prayer that way?”
Ere George could reply there was the sound of a choking sob by the open door, a rush across the floor, a folding of arms tightly around the astonished Daisy’s neck, while Rena’s voice said:
“Oh, Ruthy, Ruthy,—you are Ruthy and I am Rena. I was not burned that awful night, but thought you were, and have cried so often for you. God did answer my prayer and I never was cold any more. I am Rena Cutler and you are sister Ruth.”
Rena had been passing the open door when her attention was attracted by hearing Daisy repeat the title of the book she had once coveted so much. Involuntarily and without any intention of listening, she paused a moment and heard that which kept her riveted to the spot, while the hot blood surged wildly through her veins at Daisy’s story. She did not stop to reason or ask herself how that beautiful young lady, with all the signs of wealth and culture around her, could be the Ruth who once sold matches in New York, and lived with her in that cheerless upper room. She knew it was she—the Ruth she had mourned as dead,—and with a glad cry she went to her, and falling upon her neck, claimed her as her own.
And Daisy neither shrieked, nor fainted, nor cried out, but sat like one dead, while George unclasped Rena’s arms from her neck and questioned her of the past. Very rapidly Rena told her story, and Daisy listened till the color came back to her face, and the tears flowed in torrents, while sob after sob shook her frame, and her lips kept whispering gladly: “Thank God; thank God, it’s Rena, it is.”
Mr. and Mrs. Harris were now summoned, and to them George appealed for confirmation of Rena’s story. As concisely as he could Grandpa Harris told what he had heard of Rena from the man who brought her to Oakfield, and when he had finished even Mr. Rivers himself could no longer doubt that Daisy had found her sister, and drawing Rena to him he kissed her fondly in token of his recognition as a near and dear relation.
Daisy’s story was soon told. After her frantic call for Rena to waken she had fallen senseless upon the floor, where she would have died but for the women who occupied the adjoining room, and who suddenly remembered the little girls and called to a fireman to save them. The flames by this time were rolling up the stairway, and Ruth’s hair was scorched when the brave man reached her and bore her safely into the street. To venture again into the roaring mass of fire was impossible, and as none of Rena’s acquaintances chanced to see her in the crowd, it was supposed that she perished in the flames, and not all the good fortune which came to Ruth could ever obliterate the memory of that dreadful night, or her sister’s terrible fate. A kind woman belonging to the better class of poor had taken Ruth into her house, where within a few days came Mrs. Rivers, from far uptown, to get plain sewing done. Six months before she had lost her only daughter, who was just Ruth’s age and size, and something in the face of the desolate young girl attracted the lady’s notice, and when she heard her story it seemed as if her own dead child from the grave in Greenwood, was pleading for the orphan. And so it came about that Ruth found herself in a beautiful home, where, as Mrs. Rivers’ adopted daughter, every want was supplied, and she went no more into the street to sell her humble wares. So certain did Rena’s death seem, that no effort was ever made to find her, and for more than two years the sisters lived in the same city, and possibly met sometimes in the street, as Ruth rode with Mrs. Rivers in her luxurious carriage, and Rena took a walk with a teacher or older girl. Then Mrs. Rivers moved to Boston, and three years after Rena was sent to Oakfield, so that their lives were as far apart from each other as they were different in incident.—Loved, and petted and caressed, Ruth, to whom Mrs. Rivers gave the name of Daisy, had no wish ungratified which money could procure, and she grew up a beautiful and accomplished woman, retaining still the same sweet unselfishness of disposition and gentleness of manner which had marked her childhood, when she went hungry that little Rena might be fed. At eighteen she was married to the nephew of her so-called father, and after the birth of a little girl, whom she named Irene, she seemed perfectly happy until her infant died, when she sank into a weak, peculiar state of mind from which nothing had power to rouse her until Providence directed her to Oakfield. There she felt at home from the first, she said; the place reminded her so much of the house she had heard her mother describe so often.
“And,” she continued, taking up her story where George had left it, “I never thought of it when I first came here. I guess I did not think of anything, but mother’s name was Harris—Agatha Harris—and she——”
Daisy never finished the sentence, for ere another word could be uttered Grandpa Harris fell heavily against his wife, with the look of death on his face. The shock was too great for him to bear, and they laid him fainting upon the couch, while Aunt Hannah, Daisy and Rena bent over him, trying to restore him to consciousness. When he was himself again and able to listen, it needed but few words more to convince him that the Rena whom he loved already as his own, and the beautiful Daisy, whom he looked up to as a superior being, were both the children of his daughter, whose marriage with Homer Hastings twenty-one years ago that very night had so offended him.
Daisy could remember very little of her own father. He had been kind, she knew, and they had been comfortable while he lived, but after his death they were very poor till her mother married a Mr. Cutler, who though a worthy and respectable man, was always sickly, and died soon after Rena’s birth.