"I told you someone would come," said Rose. "Do, pray, see who it is.
How does she look, Janet?"
"Tall, white as a ghost, with big black eyes," was Janet's answer; and, with his curiosity awakened, Henry Warner started for the parlor, Rose following on tiptoe, and listening through the half-closed door to what their visitor might say.
Margaret had experienced no difficulty in finding the house of Mrs. Warner, which seemed to her a second Paradise, so beautiful and cool it looked, nestled amid the tall, green forest trees. Everything around it betokened the fine taste of its occupants, and Maggie, as she reflected that she too was nearly connected with this family, felt her wounded pride in a measure soothed, for it was surely no disgrace to claim such people as her friends. With a beating heart she rang the bell, asking for Mr. Warner, and now, trembling in every limb, she awaited his coming. He was not prepared to meet her, and at first he did not know her, she was so changed; but when, throwing aside her bonnet, she turned her face so that the light from the window opposite shone fully upon her, he recognized her in a moment, and exclaimed, "Margaret—Margaret Miller! why are you here?"
The words reached Rose's ear, and darting forward she stood within the door, just as Margaret, staggering a step or two towards Henry, answered passionately, "I have come to tell you what I myself but recently have learned"; and wringing her hands despairingly, she continued, "I am not Maggie Miller, I am not anybody; I am Hagar Warren's grandchild, the child of her daughter and your own father! Oh, Henry, don't you see it? I am your sister. Take me as such, will you? Love me as such, or I shall surely die. I have nobody now in the wide world but you. They are all gone, all—Madam Conway, Theo too, and—and—" She could not speak that name. It died upon her lips, and tottering to a chair she would have fallen had not Henry caught her in his arms.
Leading her to the sofa, while Rose, perfectly confounded, still stood within the door, he said to the half-crazed girl: "Margaret, I do not understand you. I never had a sister, and my father died when I was six months old. There must be some mistake. Will you tell me what you mean?"
Bewildered and perplexed, Margaret began a hasty repetition of Hagar's story, but ere it was three-fourths told there came from the open door a wild cry of delight, and quick as lightning a fairy form flew across the floor, white arms were twined round Maggie's neck, kiss after kiss was pressed upon her lips, and Rose's voice was in her ear, never before half so sweet as now, when it murmured soft and low to the weary girl: "My sister Maggie—mine you are—the child of my own father, for I was Rose Hamilton, called Warner, first to please my aunt, and next to please my Henry. Oh, Maggie darling, I am so happy now!" and the little snowy hands smoothed caressingly the bands of hair, so unlike her own fair waving tresses.
It was, indeed, a time of almost perfect bliss to them all, and for a moment Margaret forgot her pain, which, had Hagar known the truth, need not have come to her. But she scarcely regretted it now, when she felt Rose Warner's heart throbbing against her own, and knew their father was the same.
"You are tired," Rose said, at length, when much had been said by both. "You must have rest, and then I will bring to you my aunt, our aunt, Maggie—our father's sister. She has been a mother to me. She will be one to you. But stay," she continued, "you have had no breakfast. I will bring you some," and she tripped lightly from the room.
Maggie followed her with swimming eyes, then turning to Henry she said, "You are very happy, I am sure."
"Yes, very," he answered, coming to her side. "Happy in my wife, happy in my newly found sister," and he laid his hand on hers with something of his former familiarity.