"She has not wept before in years. It will be a great relief."
At the sound of HIS voice Nina lifted up her head, and turned toward the corner whence it came, but Edith saw that in the glance there was neither reproach nor fear, nothing save trusting confidence, and her heart insensibly softened toward him.
"Poor Arthur," Nina murmured, and laying her head again on Edith's bosom, she said, "Every body is sad where I am, but I can't help it. Oh, I can't help it. Nina's crazy, Miggie, Nina is. Poor Nina," and the voice which uttered these words was so sadly touching that Edith's tears mingled with those of the young creature she hugged the closer to her, whispering,
"I know it, darling, and I pity you so much. Maybe you'll get well, now that you know me."
"Yea, if you'll stay here always," said Nina. "What made you gone so long? I wanted you so much when the nights were dark and lonesome, and little bits of faces bent over me like yours used to be, Miggie—yours in the picture, when you wore the red morocco shoe and I led you on the high verandah."
"What does she mean?" asked Edith, who had listened to the words as to something not wholly new to her.
"I don't know," returned Arthur, "unless she has confounded you with her sister, MARGUERITE, who died many years ago, I have heard that Nina, failing to speak the real name, always called her MIGGIE. Possibly you resemble Miggie's mother. I think Aunt Phillis said you did."
Edith, too, remembered Phillis' saying that she looked like "Master Bernard's" wife, and Arthur's explanations seemed highly probable.
"Dear, darling Nina," she said, kissing the pure white forehead,
"I WILL be a sister to you."
"And stay with me?" persisted Nina. "Sleep with me nights with your arms round my neck, just like yon used to do? I hate to sleep alone, with Soph coiled up on the floor, she scares me so, and won't answer when I call her. Then, when I'm put in the recess, it's terrible. DON'T let me go in there again, will you?"