ou!"

Her voice is peculiar,--half childish, half petulant, and wholly
sweet. She is not crying, but great tears are standing in her eyes as
though eager to fall, and her lips are trembling.

"I didn't like to come earlier," says Clarissa, kissing her again. "It
is only twelve now, you know; but I was longing every bit as much to
see you as you could be to see me. Oh, Georgie, how glad I am to have
you near me! and----you have not changed a little scrap."

She says this in a relieved tone.

"Neither have you," says Georgie: "you are just the same. There is a
great comfort in that thought. If I had found you changed,--different
in any way,--what should I have done? I felt, when I saw you standing
tall and slight in the doorway, as if time had rolled back, and we
were together again at Madame Brochet's. Oh, how happy I was then!
And now----now----"

The big tears in her pathetic eyes tremble to their fall, she covers
her face with her hands.

"Tell me everything," says Clarissa, tenderly.

"What is there to tell?--except that I am alone in the world, and very
desolate. It is more than a year ago now since----since----papa left
me. It seems like a long century. At first I was apathetic; it was
despair I felt, I suppose; indeed, I was hardly conscious of the life
I was leading when with my aunt. Afterwards the reaction set in; then
came the sudden desire for change, the intense longing for work of any
kind; and then----"

"Then you thought of me!" says Clarissa, pressing her hand.

"That is true. Then I thought of you, and how ready your sympathy had
ever been. When--when he died, he left me a hundred pounds. It was all
he had to leave." She says this hastily, passionately, as though it
must be gone through, no matter how severe the pain that accompanies
the telling of it. Clarissa, understanding, draws even closer to her.
This gentle movement is enough. A heart, too full, breaks beneath
affection's touch. Georgie bursts into tears.

"It was all on earth he _had_ to give," she sobs, bitterly, "and I
think he must have _starved_ himself to leave me even that! Oh, shall
I ever forget?"

"In time," whispers Clarissa, gently. "Be patient: wait." Then, with a
sigh, "How sad for some this sweet world can be!"

"I gave my aunt forty pounds," goes on the fair-haired beauty, glad to
find somebody in whom she can safely confide and to whom her troubles
may be made known. "I gave it to her because I had lived with her s