"Your aunt and cousin have at length arrived at the port of Baltimore. They came over in the Walter Raleigh. I wish you to be in readiness to accompany me to-morrow when I go to bring them down."
"My father, yes," were the only words that escaped the formal and frozen girl.
A week after this conversation the still life of the beautiful cottage was enlivened. A lovely boy played before the door, while a pale mother watched him from within. That pale mother was not yet thirty years of age, yet her cheeks were sunken, her eyes dim, and her hair streaked with silver. Truly, the face was breaking fast, but the heart was breaking faster. But the boy! Oh, he was a noble child! Tall for his age (he was but five years old), his dark hair, parted over a high, broad forehead, fell in sable curls upon his shoulders; his large black eyes, now keen and piercing as the young eagle's, now soft and melting as the dove's. His dark eyes wore their softest shade as he stole to his mother's side, and, twining his little arms around her neck, drew her face down to his, saying, with a kiss: "Willie is so sorry?"
"For what should Willie be sorry?" said the mother, tenderly caressing him.
"Because mamma is sad. Does she want Willie to do anything?"
"No, sweet boy, she wants nothing done that Willie can do."
"If mamma's head aches, Willie will hold it."
"Her head does not ache."
"If mamma wants Willie to stop teasing her and go to bed, he will go."
"You are not teasing me, dear Willie, and it is rather too early for you to go to bed."