d now this wonderful event had come to her and she seemed to
understand the thoughts and feelings that had been such a mystery. When
she had been clasped to her true mother's heart, it appeared to her as
if a veil had been drawn aside, and she had stepped into a larger room,
replete with all she had vaguely dreamed about. That Crawford House was
one of the fine old places, she knew, but she never thought of that
luxurious living where all the tomorrows had been provided for. She
would have gone to the simplest cottage for that mother's love.

Would Zaidee Crawford give her a sister's warm welcome? She would never
grudge her anything money could buy; but she, Lilian, must seem like an
interloper to them. And to share her mother's love with a stranger!

Miss Arran entered the room.

"You ought to go to bed, Miss Boyd. I will sit here and watch. Your
mother seems asleep."

Lilian changed her dress for a comfortable wrapper, kissed her mother's
forehead and pressed the cold hands. She did not stir; but then she had
lain this way for hours at a time. The girl drew up her cot to the side
of her mother's bed and laid down. The clocks all about were striking
midnight.

It had not been so tranquil at Crawford House. Dinner had been rather
quiet; no one seemingly to want to talk at any length. Afterward, Major
Crawford had said--

"Let us all go up to mother's room. I have a singular explanation to
make to you two children. Aunt Kate has known it these two days."

"There has seemed something mysterious in the air," exclaimed Willard,
"only I am sure nothing worse has happened to mother. She looks so
extraordinarily happy, and Zay is about again."

"We must go back to the time of the accident," began the Major. "We
thought we had overlived the sorrow and we had never expected any joy
for the outcome."

He paused to steady his voice, then began the story of the other woman,
the only passenger who carried an infant, her hours of unconsciousness,
her hearing the cry of the child and claiming it and then learning that
the woman she believed its mother had been killed and full of pity for
it, since her own had been mangled and carried away, resolved to take it
and care for it. She left the next day--

"Oh, you don't mean she took our baby," cried Willard passionately, his
eyes aflame.

"She took our baby. She has cared for it all these years through poverty
and failing health and now that she is dying, she thought the chil