"Just her age," repeated the wife hurriedly, laying her hand on his arm, while her eyes filled with tears.
"Twelve years and three months," he repeated involuntarily.
"And she has Alice's blue eyes too,—your own color, Captain."
The girls had listened with silent sympathy to this brief interchange of sorrowful questioning; but now Emmie interrupted them. She drew closer to Mrs. Fawcett, and laid a hand confidingly on her lap.
"Was Alice the name of your little girl? Cathy said you had one."
"Hush, Emmie; come here to me, love;" but Emmie hung back from her friend's extended hand.
"Yes; her name was Alice; she is still my little girl," returned the poor mother, speaking with her pure maternal faith, and unconsciously verifying the eternity of love; "the treasure once given never really lost, only lent to safe keeping."
"Of course she is your little girl," was Emmie's answer. "You mean to see her again some day, only she is not keeping house with you now; perhaps she would have got tired. God would know all about that; He does not like children to be tired; He was very nearly taking me away for the same reason, only I got rested somehow."
"Captain, do you hear that?"
"Aye, poor bairn; too big a mind for so small a body."