ld. "Look here!"

In a poor, mean room; working at the same kind of embroidery, which he
had often, often, seen before her; Meg, his own dear daughter, was
presented to his view. He made no effort to imprint his kisses on her
face; he did not strive to clasp her to his loving heart; he knew that
such endearments were, for him, no more. But he held his trembling
breath, and brushed away the blinding tears, that he might look upon
her; that he might only see her.

Ah! Changed. Changed. The light of the clear eye, how dimmed. The bloom,
how faded from the cheek. Beautiful she was, as she had ever been, but
Hope, Hope, Hope, oh, where was the fresh Hope that had spoken to him
like a voice!

She looked up from her work, at a companion. Following her eyes, the old
man started back.

In the woman grown, he recognized her at a glance. In the long silken
hair, he saw the self-same curls; around the lips, the child's
expression lingering still. See! In the eyes, now turned inquiringly on
Meg, there shone the very look that scanned those features when he
brought her home!

Then what was this, beside him?

Looking with awe into its face, he saw a something reigning there: a
lofty something, undefined and indistinct, which made it hardly more
than a remembrance of that child--as yonder figure might be--yet it was
the same: the same: and wore the dress.

Hark! They were speaking!

"Meg," said Lilian, hesitating. "How often you raise your head from your
work to look at me!"

"Are my looks so altered, that they frighten you?" asked Meg.

"Nay, dear! But you smile at that yourself! Why not smile when you look
at me, Meg?"

"I do so. Do I not?" she answered: smiling on her.

"Now you do," said Lilian, "but not usually. When you think I'm busy,
and don't see you, you look so anxious and so doubtful, that I hardly
like to raise my eyes. There is little cause for smiling in this hard
and toilsome life, but you were once so cheerful."

"Am I not now?" cried Meg, speaking in a tone of strange alarm, and
rising to embrace her. "Do _I_ make our weary life more weary to you,
Lilian?"

"You have been the only thing that made it life," said Lilian, fervently
kissing her; "sometimes the only thing that made me care to live so,
Meg. Such work, such work! So many hours, so many days, so many long,
long nights of hopeless, cheerless, never-ending work--not to heap up
riches, not to live grandly or gayly, not to live upon enough, how