That night Mrs. Seymour and Alice came home, accompanied by Guy. They had not been expected quite so soon, and Magdalen knew nothing of their arrival until Alice, who had heard from Honora what had transpired during her absence, entered the room. Mrs. Grey was sitting up in her large arm-chair, her dressing-gown and shawl carefully arranged, her hair nicely combed, and a look of content upon her face which Alice had rarely seen. She was rocking still, with one foot on the crib and her eyes fixed on Magdalen, who was repeating to her the Culprit Fay, which she knew by heart, and to which the childish woman listened with all the absorbing interest of a little girl of ten. At sight of Alice there came a sudden gleam of joy over her face, succeeded by a look of fear as she wound both arms tightly around Magdalen’s neck, exclaiming:
“Oh, Allie, I’m glad you’ve come, but you must not take her away. She does me good. I’m better with her. Say that she may stay.”
There was a momentary look of pain in Alice’s eyes at seeing a stranger thus preferred to herself; but that quickly passed, and stooping over her mother, she kissed her tenderly, and said:
“Magdalen shall stay with you as long as she will. I am glad you like her so well. We all love Magdalen.”
“Yes, and it’s coming back to me. That was baby’s name,—the one I gave her to please your father, and by and by I’ll think just where it is.”
Alice shot a quick, inquiring glance at Magdalen, as if to ask how much of their family history her mother had revealed, but Magdalen merely said:
“She seems to think there is a baby in the cradle,—a baby whom she says she lost or mislaid. It died, I suppose.”
“Poor mother, she has suffered so much for that dead child,” was Alice’s only reply, as she stood caressing her mother’s hair.
Then she tried to tell her something of her visit to New York and the rare music she had heard; but Mrs. Grey did not care for that, and said a little impatiently, “Don’t bother me now; I’m listening to the story. Go on, Magdalen. He was just going to relight his lamp, and I want it over with, for I know how he felt. My lamp has gone out, and all the falling stars in heaven can’t light it.”
“I see you are preferred to me,” Alice said to Magdalen; “but if you do her good, and I can see that you have already, I bless you for it. Poor, dear mother, who has never known a rational moment since I can remember.”