"Grandmother," the low voice said again, "I am Maggie—Hester's child.
Can you see me? Do you know that I am here?"
Yes, through the films of age, through the films of coming death, and through the gathering darkness, old Hagar saw and knew, and with a scream of joy her shrunken arms wound themselves convulsively around the maiden's neck, drawing her nearer, and nearer still, until the shriveled lips touched the cheek of her who did not turn away, but returned that kiss of love.
"Say it again, say that word once more," and the arms closed tighter round the form of Margaret, who breathed it yet again, while the childish woman sobbed aloud, "It is sweeter than the angels' song to hear you call me so."
She did not ask her when she came—she did not ask her where she had been; but Maggie told her all, sitting by her side with the poor hands clasped in her own; then, as the twilight shadows deepened in the room, she struck a light, and coming nearer to Hagar, said, "Am I much like my mother?"
"Yes, yes, only more winsome," was the answer, and the half-blind eyes looked proudly at the beautiful girl bending over the humble pillow.
"Do you know that?" Maggie asked, holding to view the ambrotype of
Hester Hamilton.
For an instant Hagar wavered, then hugging the picture to her bosom, she laughed and cried together, whispering as she did so, "My little girl, my Hester, my baby that I used to sing to sleep in our home away over the sea."
Hagar's mind was wandering amid the scenes of bygone years, but it soon came back again to the present time, and she asked of Margaret whence that picture came. In a few words Maggie told her, and then for a time there was silence, which was broken at last by Hagar's voice, weaker now than when she spoke before.
"Maggie," she said, "what of this Arthur Carrollton? Will he make you his bride?"
"He has so promised," answered Maggie; and Hagar continued: "He will take you to England, and you will be a lady, sure. Margaret, listen to me. 'Tis the last time we shall ever talk together, you and I, and I am glad that it is so. I have greatly sinned, but I have been forgiven, and I am willing now to die. Everything I wished for has come to pass, even the hearing you call me by that blessed name; but, Maggie, when to-morrow they say that I am dead—when you come down to look upon me lying here asleep, you needn't call me 'Grandmother,' you may say 'poor Hagar!' with the rest; and, Maggie, is it too much to ask that your own hands will arrange my hair, fix my cap, and straighten my poor old crooked limbs for the coffin? And if I should look decent, will you, when nobody sees you do it—Madam Conway, Arthur Carrollton, nobody who is proud—will you, Maggie, kiss me once for the sake of what I've suffered that you might be what you are?"