“I beg your pardon,” said the latter, flushing slightly as she met the startled, surprised look that shot into Virgie’s eyes; “I did not know that any one was here. I came to find a book that I left here yesterday.”
Virgie bowed, and moved aside to see if she was hiding it; but her heart beat almost suffocatingly, and she was as white as that cluster of acacias in her belt.
Yes, there was a volume lying on the chair beside her, which Mrs. Heath recognized, remarking as she took possession of it:
“Ah, yes, this is it. Thank you; I am sorry to have intruded upon you.” Then, with an upward, admiring glance into the beautiful face, she added: “Pray, excuse me, but are not you the mother of the little girl who is playing with my son in the corridor? The resemblance between you is very striking.”
“Yes, Virgie is my daughter,” Virgie answered, laying an unconscious stress upon the pronoun.
“She is a dear little thing—so merry, yet so gentle and affectionate,” remarked Mrs. Heath, with a tender inflection which somewhat softened her listener, “and I believe she is the loveliest child I ever saw. How old is she?”
“She was nine in June.”
“And my boy is eight,” smiled the fond mother, with a proud, backward glance; “and he seems to have become really attached to Virgie during the little time they have played together. Have you been in Niagara long, Mrs. Alexander?”
Virgie started at being thus addressed by the woman who bore the name which had once been rightly her own.
“We arrived the day before yesterday,” she said, briefly.