one!'

He was across the room and in her arms in a moment. Blessings on the
true mother's heart! it gave not one kiss, but a dozen. Ah! feeling the
blessing of those tears upon his head, pressed close against the breast
throbbing with pure maternal sympathy, his own starved heart eagerly
drinking from that overflowing fountain, the word _mother_ rose
naturally to his lips _then_.--Alas for her from whom alone that beating
heart, throbbing with a new delight, should have received that
revelation! Alas for the heart thus robbed of its lawful heritage, to
whom the highest and holiest of earth's affection had manifested itself
but as a brutish instinct, which, in fits of maudlin tenderness, could
fold the little form in a loathsome embrace, and smother the pure breath
with drunken kisses! No other love, however high and pure it may be, can
atone to the wronged heart that has been cruelly robbed of this.

In this new-found joy all heavy sorrows were forgotten. Pressed close
against that sympathetic bosom, he was happy _now_, happier than he had
ever been before; and when at last she wiped her tears away, and,
lifting the hand on which his grateful tears were falling (for Harry
cried too), and smilingly up-turning the tear-wet face to meet her own,
that face was so changed by joy that she hardly knew it, and Harry
wondered why it was that she laughed and cried together when she looked
at it, and kissed him over and over again more times than he could
count. Laughing and chatting gayly until she saw her own smiles
reflected on the little, sorrowful features, she, with a tender mother's
care, bathed the flushed face, combed out the bright silky hair,
smoothed and arranged the rumpled dress, and, taking the small hand,
went out to the garden gate to meet the expedition sent in search of
Harry.

Now this was his red-letter day. Harry was in luck. Therefore it was not
one of the many servants of the establishment, or any straggling
acquaintance that had joined in the search. Luckily, it was not one of
these, or the cross Betty, who first espied Harry and the lady:
otherwise he would have been borne away from his friend and his recently
discovered Eden in triumph, in spite of all cries and protestations. It
was Harry's own papa; and it did not take many words, when the
bright-faced lady was the pleader (backed by that little face, with that
strange flush of joy upon it, that spoke more eloquently to the father's
heart than any w