CHAPTER XII

'I were but little happy, if I could say how much.'

SHAKESPEARE.


Twenty-four hours have come and gone and have left everyone a day older,
they are all in the garden, except Paul; a little golden haired girl is
playing with Teddy, and Mabel watches them from a distance with a
beaming smile. For a great happiness has come to her, the empty place in
her heart has been refilled, for a strange and wonderful thing has
happened; for only the evening before, her brother knocked at her
bedroom door, as she was dressing for dinner, and on her saying, come
in, he opened it, and said, 'Mabel, here is somebody I should like you
to see.'

Somebody! yes indeed; and a small somebody too, somebody so like
Philippa, somebody! who had a little gold locket with a turquoise in the
centre. Ah! it seems too good to be true!

'Lilian!' Mabel calls, and then as the child does not take any notice,
'Baby--' The child turns and looks shyly at her mother; and emboldened
by a sweet smile she runs and hides her head in her mother's gown, while
the little hands are covered with kisses.

'You won't be afraid of me, will you?' asks Mabel, 'and you will love me
very soon, I hope.'