"Father!"
The book dropped from his knees to the floor, as he sprang towards her.
"Am I so strange, father, that you did not know me?"
"Indeed, my daughter, I was afraid to speak; I did not know but a strange woman had been sent to punish me, to 'sting me like an adder.' Oh, Maggie, you don't know how I feel that I deserve it. And yet you are so good. You are a strange woman. It is strange, passing strange, to think that my daughter, my little neglected, dirty, ragged, mischievous—"
"Wild Maggie, father."
"Yes, she had run wild; should be the lovely—you do look lovely, Maggie—girl now in my arms. Oh, Maggie! Maggie! this is all your work."
"No, no, father; you must give the good Missionary his share of the credit; and the good people all over the country who have sent him money and clothes to feed and clothe the naked, and reform the drunkard. What should we have been to-day, if he had not come to live in the Five Points, father?"
"I should have been in my grave; a poor, miserable drunkard's grave; it is awful to think where else I should have been."
"Well, well, father, you are happy now,"
"Yes, I am, and so is mother, and we shall be more so when we get a home of our own, and all live together. Why, Maggie, why, who did dress you up so neat?"