e her; they must treat her fully as an equal or
as nothing, and with a new-born feeling of pride in her late son's
widow, Mrs. Richards arose, and putting Willie from her lap, advanced to
meet her, cordially extending her hand, but uttering no word of welcome.
Adah took the hand, but her eyes never sought the face of her lady
mother. They were riveted with a hungry, wistful, longing look on
Willie, the little boy, who, clinging to his grandmother's skirts,
peered curiously at her, holding back at first, when, unmindful of
Asenath and Eudora, who had not yet been greeted, she tried to take him
in her arms.

"Oh, Willie, darling, don't you know me? I am poor mamma," and Adah's
voice was choked with sobs at this unlooked-for reception from her
child.

He had been sent for from Anna's home to meet his mother, because it was
proper; but no one at Terrace Hill had said to him that the mamma for
whom sweet Anna taught him daily to pray was coming. She was not in his
mind, and as eighteen months had obliterated all memories of the gentle,
girlish creature he once knew as mother, he could not immediately
identify that mother with the lady before him.

It was a sad disappointment to Adah, and without knowing what she was
doing, she sank down upon the sofa, and involuntarily laying her head in
Mrs. Richards' lap, cried bitterly, her tears bringing answering ones
from the eyes of all three of the ladies, for they half believed her
grief, in part, was for the lifeless form in the room below.

"Poor child, you are tired and worn. It is hard to lose him just as
there was a prospect of perfect reconciliation with us all," Mrs.
Richards said, softly smoothing the brown tresses lying on her lap, and
thinking even then that curls were more becoming to her daughter-in-law
than braids had been, but wondering why, now she was in mourning, Adah
had persisted in wearing them.

"Pretty girl, pretty turls, is you tyin'?" and won by her distress,
Willie drew near, and laid his baby hand upon the curls he thought so
pretty.

"That's mamma, Willie," Asenath said; "the mamma Aunt Anna said would
come some time--Willie's mamma. Can't he kiss her?"

The child could not resist the face which, lifting itself up, looked
eagerly at him, and he put up his little hands for Adah to take him,
returning the kisses she showered upon him and clinging to her neck,
while he said:

"Is you mam-ma sure? I prays for mam-ma--God take care of her, and pa-pa