that same night, just when cecile had laid her tired head on her pillow, there came a soft tap to her door, and young mme. malet, holding a lamp in her hand, came in.
"ah, madame," said cecile, "i am so glad to see you. has it not been wonderful, wonderful, what has happened to day? has not jesus the guide been more than good? yes. i do feel now that he will hear my prayer to the very end; i do feel that i shall very soon find lovedy."
"cecile," said mme. malet, kneeling down by the child's bed, and holding the lamp so that its light fell full on her own fair face, "what kind was this lovedy joy?"
"what kind?" exclaimed cecile. "ah, dear mme. suzanne, how well i know her face! i can see it as her mother told me about it-blue eyes, golden hair, teeth white and like little pearls, rosy, cherry lips. a beautiful english girl! no-i never could mistake lovedy."
"cecile," continued mme. malet, "you say you would know this lovedy when you saw her. see! look well at me—the light is shining on my face. what kind of face have i got, cecile?"
"fair," answered cecile—"very fair and very beautiful. your eyes, they are blue as the sky; and your lips, how red they are, and how they can smile! and your teeth are very white; and then your hair, it is like gold when the sun makes it all dazzling. and—and——"
"and i am english—an english girl," continued madame.
"an english girl!" repeated cecile, "you—are—like her—then!"
"cecile, i am her—i am lovedy joy!"
"you! you!" repeated cecile. "you lovedy! but no, no; you are suzanne—you are mme. malet."
"nevertheless i was—i am lovedy joy. i am that wicked girl who broke her mother's heart; i am that wicked girl who left her. cecile, i am she whom you seek; you have no further search to make—poor, brave, dear little sister—i am she."
then lovedy put her arms round cecile, and they mingled their tears together. the woman wept from a strong sense of remorse and pain, but the child's tears were all delight.
"and you are the susie about whom mammie moseley used to fret? oh, it seems too good, too wonderful!" said cecile at last.
"yes, cecile, i left mammie moseley too; i did everything that was heartless and bad. oh, but i have been unhappy. surrounded by mercies as i have been, there has been such a weight, so heavy, so dreadful, ever on my heart."
cecile did not reply to this. she was looking hard at the lovedy she had come so many miles to seek—for whom she had encountered so many dangers. it seemed hard to realize that her search was accomplished, her goal won, her prize at her feet.
"yes, lovedy, your mother was right, you are very beautiful," she said slowly.
"oh, cecile! tell me about my mother," said lovedy then. "all these years i have never dared speak of my mother. but that has not prevented my starving for her, something as poor joe must have starved for his. tell me all you can about my mother—-more than alphonse told downstairs tonight."
so cecile told the old story. over and over again she dwelt upon that deathbed scene, upon that poor mother's piteous longing for her child, and lovedy listened and wept as if her heart would break.
at last this tale, so sad, so bitter for the woman who was now a mother herself, came to an end, and then lovedy, wiping her eyes, spoke:
"cecile, i must tell you a little about myself. you know the day my mother married your father, i ran away. i had loved my mother most passionately; but i was jealous. i was exacting. i was proud. i could not bear that my mother should put anyone in my place. i ran away. i went to my aunt fanny. she was a vain and silly woman. she praised me for running away. she said i had spirit. she took me to paris.
"for the first week i got on pretty well. the new life helped to divert my thoughts, and i tried to believe i could do well without my mother. but then the knowledge that i had done wrong, joined to a desperate mother-hunger, i can call it by no other word, took possession of me. i got to hate my aunt, who led a gay life. at last i could bear it no longer. i ran away.
"i had just enough money in my pocket to take me to london; i had not one penny more. but i felt easy enough; i thought, i will go to our old home, and make it up with mother, and then it will be all right. so i spent my last, my very last shilling in a cab fare, and i gave the driver the old address.
"as i got near the house, i began to wish i had not come. i was such an odd mixture; all made up of love and that terrible pride. however, my pride was to get a shock i little expected.
"strangers were in the old rooms; strangers who knew nothing whatever about my mother. i found that i had so set my heart against this marriage, that i had not even cared to inquire the name of the man my mother had married; so i had no clew to give anyone, no one could help me. i was only a child then, and i wandered away without one farthing, absolutely alone in the great world of london.
"it drove me nearly wild to remember that my mother was really in the very same london, and i could not find her, and when i had got as far as a great bridge—-i knew it was a bridge, for i saw the water running under it—-i could bear my feelings no longer, and i just cried out like any little baby for my mammie.
"it was then, cecile, that mrs. moseley found me. oh! how good she was to me! she took me home and she gave me love, and my poor starved heart was a little satisfied.
"perhaps she and her husband could have helped me to find my mother. but again that demon pride got over me. i would not tell them my tale. i would acknowledge to no one that my mother had put another in my place; so all the time that i was really starving for one kiss from my own mother, i made believe that i did not care.
"i used to go out every day and look for her as well as i could by myself, but of course i never got the slightest clew to where she lived; and i doubt then, that even if i had known, so contrary was i, that i would have gone to her.
"well, one day, who should come up to me, quite unexpectedly, but aunt fanny again. oh! she was a bad, cruel woman, and she had a strange power over me. she talked very gently, and not a bit crossly, and she soon came around a poor, weak young thing like me; she praised my pretty face, and she roused my vanity and my pride, and at last she so worked on me, that she got me to do a mean and shameful thing—i was to go back to paris with her, without ever even bidding the moseleys good-by.
"well, cecile, i did go—-i hate myself when i think of it, but i did go back to paris that very night with aunt fanny. i soon found out what she was up to, she wanted to make money by me. she took me to a stage-manager, and he said he would prepare me for the stage—i had a voice, as well as a face and figure, he said. and he prophesied that i should be a great success. then i began the most dreadful life. i heard horrible things, bad things.
"perhaps the thought of all the triumphs that were before me might have reconciled me to my fate, but i had always in my heart the knowledge that i had done wrong: however, aunt fanny ruled me with a tight hand, and i had no chance of running away. i was so unhappy that i wrote to the moseleys begging them to forgive and help me, but i think now aunt fanny must have stopped the letters, for i never got any answer.
"well, cecile, she died rather suddenly, and the manager said i was his property, and i must come and live in his house.
"i could not stand that. i just made up my mind; i ran away again. it was night, and i wandered alone in the paris streets. i had two francs in my pocket. god only knows what my fate would have been, but he took care of me. as i was walking down a long boulevard i heard a woman say aloud and very bitterly:
"'god above help me; shall i ever see my child again?'
"she spoke in french, but i understood french very well then. her words arrested me; i turned to look at her.
"'oh, my dear! you are too young to be out alone at night like this," she said.
"oh! but she had the kindest heart. cecile, that woman was mme. malet; she had come up to paris to look for her lost alphonse; she took me home with her to the south; and a year after, i married my dear, my good jean. cecile, i have the best husband, i have the sweetest child; but i have never been quite happy—often i have been miserable; i could not tell about my mother, even to my jean. he often asked me, but i always said:
"'i hate england; ask me nothing about england if you love me.'"
"but you will tell him to-night; you will tell him all to-night?" asked cecile.
"yes, dear little one, i am going to him; there shall never be a secret between us again; and now god reward, god bless thee, dear little sister."
