"Do you remember her well?" asked Donald, hesitating as to which one of a crowd of questions he should ask first.
"Perfectly, sir. She was very handsome. Ah me! and so good, so grand! The other lady—her husband's sister, I think, was very pretty, very sweet and gentle; but my lady was like a queen. I can see a trace of her features—just a little—in yours, Mr.—Mr. Reed. I did not at first; but the likeness grows on me."
"And this?" asked Donald, taking a photograph from his pocket. "Do you see any resemblance here to my mother?"
She held it up to the light, and looked at it long and wistfully. "Poor lady!" she said at last.
"Poor lady?" echoed Donald, rather amused at hearing his bright little Dorry spoken of in that way; "she is barely sixteen."
"Ah, no! It is the mother I am thinking of. How proud and happy she would be now with this beautiful daughter! For surely this is your sister's likeness, sir?"
Ellen Lee looked up quickly, but, reassured by Donald's prompt "Yes, indeed," she again studied the picture.
It was one that he had carried about with him ever since he left home—putting it upon the wall[1] or the bureau of his room, wherever he had chanced to lodge; and it showed Dorothy just as she looked the day before he sailed. He had gone with her to the photographer's to have it taken, and for his sake she had tried to forget that they were so suddenly to say "good-by."
"Ah, what a bright, happy face! A blessed day indeed it would be to me if I could see you two, grown to a beautiful young lady and gentleman, standing together—"
"That you shall see," responded Donald, heartily, not because he accepted the title of beautiful young gentleman, but because his heart was full of joy to think of the happy days to come, when the shadow of doubt and mystery would be forever lifted from the home at Lakewood.