lth, what were the elegances and luxuries that surrounded her, what
the fashionable friends who crowded to welcome her, compared to that one
fresh, trusting, loving heart, that clung to hers with such strength and
ardor of affection!

Many a time during their long separation had her spirit gone yearningly
out toward the child, and now she was beside her again with deep eyes
beaming earnestly upon her, and red lips pressed ever and anon to her
own with an overflowing fondness.

The twilight was in the room, and through its dimness the little
portrait on the wall was visible, no longer shrouded in somber weeds,
but in its brightness and simplicity gazing down upon the two loving
ones beneath it, and seeming to share in their deep and hallowed joy.

The young girl bowed her head until it rested softly upon the bosom of
her mother, as she said, "It is so sweet to be here, dear mamma! Often
have I walked past this desolate house, with the feeling that it might
never again open to receive me, and it seems so like a dream that I am
here once more, with the cold world wholly shut out from me, and your
warm, warm heart beating so close to mine again!"

"Has the world indeed been cold to you, my darling," said Mrs. Dunmore,
"and have you found no kind friends to make my absence less weary? I had
hoped that Madame La Blanche would prove a fond and faithful mother."

"And so she has, dear mamma, but thoughts of the past would sometimes
come up to trouble me, and then I needed you to help me bear it, and to
bring sunshine and peace from it all. This was at first when I felt
quite alone in the world, after you had gone; but I tried afterward to
do as Madame La Blanche said was the better way--to put every thing
bitter from me, and try to think only of the good that was all around
me. When we were gloomy or dispirited, she would say, 'I know it is very
trying, my children, to be separated from your parents and friends; but
you must remember that so long as you are with me, I stand in the same
relationship to you all; and that my heart will be cast down and pained
if you fail to come freely to me with all your little burdens and
sorrows.' She said too, that 'we were as one dear and pleasant family,
and that each of us must strive to bring as much brightness as possible
into our little household, and then we could not help being happy.'
Nobody could be kinder nor better than Madame La Blanche, and Rosalie
and Carrie were as sweet si