"Sakes alive!" cried Liddy, holding up her hands in dismay—"not told you everything?"
"Yes, he has," insisted Dorry, weeping afresh, as Lydia's manner seemed to give her a new right to consider that an awful fact had been revealed to her. "I know now all about it. I haven't any Aunt Kate at all. I'm a-all alone!"
"For shame, Miss Dorry; how can you talk so? You, with your blessed uncle and your brother, to say nothing of them who have cherished you in their arms from the day you were a helpless baby—for shame, Miss, to say such a thing!"
This was presenting matters in a new light.
"Oh, Liddy, you don't know about it. There's no Aunt K-Kate, anyway," sobbed Dorry, rather relieved at finding herself the subject of a good scolding.
"There isn't, eh? Well, I'd like to know why not!" retorted Lydia, furtively wiping her eyes. "I guess there is. I knew, long before you were born, that she was a dear little adopted girl. But what of that? that doesn't mean she wasn't ever a little girl at all. Don't you know, Miss Dorry, child, that a human being's a human being, and folks care for 'em for what they are? It wasn't just belonging to this or that family made Miss Kate so lovely,—it's what she was herself; and I can certify to her bein' as real as you and me are—if that's all that's wanted."
By this time Dorry, though half-comforted, had buried her face in the sofa-pillow.
"Not that I can't feel for you, poor dear," Liddy continued, gently patting the young girl's shoulder, but speaking more rapidly, "many's the time I've wept tears, just to think of you, longing with all your little heart for a mother. I'm a rough old body, my dove, and what are your dear good uncle and Master Donald but menkind, after all, and it's natural you should pine for Aunty. Ah, I'm afraid it's my doings that you've been thinkin' of her all these days, when, may be, if I'd known your dear mother, which I didn't,—and no blame to me neither,—I wouldn't always have been holding Miss Kate up to you. But she was a darling, was your Aunt Kate, as you know by her picture down stairs—don't you, dear?"
Dorry nodded into the cushion, by way of reply.
Liddy gazed at her a moment in sympathizing silence, and then, in a more cheerful tone, begged her to rouse herself.