"My mother!" she exclaimed in a tone of deep feeling, and stood gazing at Hetty as if a ghost had risen up before her.
Hetty retreated a step, and the two girls stood gazing at each other. Miss Gaythorne recovered herself quickly, but her hands and voice were trembling as she took Hetty's fingers in her own.
"Have I frightened you, dear?" she said; "but oh, if you knew how strangely, how wonderfully like you are to my darling mother."
"Your mother?" stammered Hetty.
"Such a sweet beauty of a young mother she was as I remember her—and I have a likeness of her at your age;—it seems to me that you are the living image of it."
"How very strange!" said Hetty, with a thrill of delight at the thought that she was like anybody belonging to this charming girl, especially her mother. Hetty had fascinating fancies of her own about an ideal mother; no real mother she had known had ever reached her standard. But Reine's mother must surely have been up to the mark. And to be told that she, Hetty, was like her! She drew nearer to Reine, who put her arms round her neck and kissed her.
"I can't tell you how I feel," said Reine, holding her off and looking at her. "I feel as if you belonged to me someway."
"Don't turn my head," pleaded Hetty wistfully. "Please remember I have no relations and must not expect to be loved. I have had great trouble about that; and it has been very hard for them to manage me."
"Has it?" said Reine doubtfully.
"As I'm now nearly grown up," said Hetty, "of course I have had to learn to behave myself; so don't spoil me."