--that she, poor darling, had a kind of notion I was going to yield,
and that night she slept in my arms.

"The next morning I put on my neat new dress and bonnet, and went
into her room.

"'Lovedy, will you come to church to see your mother married?'

"I never forgot--never, never, the look she gave me. She went white
as marble, and her eyes blazed at me and then grew hard, and she put
her head down on her hands, and, do all in my power, I could not get
a word out of her.

"Well, Cecile, yer father and I were married, and when we came back
Lovedy was gone. There was just a little bit of a note, all blotted
with tears, on the table. Cecile, I have got that little note, and
you must put it in my coffin. These words were writ on it by my poor
girl: "'Mother, you had no pity, so your Lovedy is gone. Good-by,
mother.'

"Yes, Cecile, that was the note, and what it said was true. My
Lovedy was gone. She had disappeared, and so had her Aunt Fanny, and
never, never from that hour have I heard one single word of Lovedy."

Mrs. D'Albert paused here. The telling of her tale seemed to have
changed her. In talking of her child the hard look had left her face,
an expression almost beautiful in its love and longing filled her
poor dim eyes, and when Cecile, in her sympathy, slipped her little
hand into hers, she did not resist the pressure.