"If my poor words have put you on the right track, dear lady, the sight of your face has gladdened my very heart to-day, and not mine only, but the hearts of the many that have good cause to love you and yours."
Before night came the bright spirits of the stranger child had infected everybody, for she had flitted to and fro like a bird, asking names and questions about people and things, and compelled laughter from her constant companion, Margery. She insisted on having again the pretty frock that had been Dorothy's, and then on Margery's wearing hers too.
"Little sisters must be alike," said Clare, with such an air of authority that she had her way, and Margery's dainty frock was willingly put on, as the wearer said, "to please Dorothy." In her mind Clare and the dead sister were from that day ever united. She regarded her new playmate as Dorothy's gift, and to be loved and cherished in place of Dorothy herself.
When at length both children were wearied, and each was laid in her pretty bed, the couches had to be drawn close together, that Margery might still hold Clare's plump hand in hers—so slender by comparison—and, thus still linked, they slept peacefully.
Mrs. Austin looked at the children with a thankful heart, and whispered to Barbara—
"The little one's coming has worked like a charm on Margery."
"Aye, thank God. And yet I wish she had been the daughter of any man rather than Edward Austin. She is like a little witch; she gets over everybody—me amongst the rest, though I never thought I could bear to hold that man's child in my arms. I did, though, to-night; and she clung to me, and patted my face, and kissed me, till I could hardly let her go. And now she says that she will not put her black frock on again, and Margery must not either. What shall I do?"
"Dress her in Dorothy's clothes, and let Margery wear the ones she and her sister wore together."
Barbara was quite shocked at this order.
"Mistress, dear," she said, "her sister has only been three months dead! She should wear black for a year! It is not decent!"