"Katherine! Katherine!" she cried, breathlessly, "I'm found!—I'm found!—I'm not a 'stray waif'—I'm not lost any longer—I'm—I'm- -"
She could say no more-her breath was spent; her emotion mastered her—and, bowing her head on her companion's shoulder, she burst into passionate weeping that shook her from head to foot.
Katherine held her in a close, loving embrace for a moment, then gently forced her into a rocker and knelt beside her, still keeping her arms around her, while she worked mentally for dominion and harmony.
But the flood-gates were open wide. The pent-up yearnings of years were let loose, and it was some time before the storm began to abate.
Once or twice she attempted to say something, then lapsed into fresh weeping, her self-control strangely shattered; for Jennie had seldom been known to shed tears in the presence of others, even under great pressure.
"Hush!" at length commanded Katherine, with gentle authority; "be still and know who has you in His care."
"That's pa-part of it!—to—to think that I—I didn't 'know'; and now it has c-come when I never really had f-f-faith to be-believe it would. I—do-don't d-deserve it," sobbed the girl, with another helpless outburst.
While Katherine is patiently waiting and working for the return of a more tranquil frame of mind, let us take a backward glance and follow Jennie on her eventful trip to Boston.
Upon her arrival in town she went directly to the store to which she had been directed and where her order was immediately filled; then finding that she had more than an hour on her hands before her train would go, she left her package to be called for and slipped into a large department store, to look at some pictures that had been recently and extensively advertised in the papers.
But before reaching the room where they were on exhibition, she was attracted another way, by seeing a crowd of people standing before an alcove that had been curtained off, and where a so- called "transformation scene" was being enacted before admiring and wondering observers.