eyes. Her eyes said plainly, "Let me love you."

Now, Mercy's eyes too were pleading; Mercy's eyes too had said, "let
me love you," Lydia saw the likeness between Mercy and Cecile at a
glance, and she almost hated the little foreign girl for resembling
her lost darling.

Old Mrs. Bell further aggravated her dislike; she was so old and
invalidish now that her memory sometimes failed.

The morning after the children's arrival, she spoke to Lydia.

"Lydia, that was Mercy's voice I heard just now in the passage."

"Mercy is dead," answered Lydia, contracting her brows in pain.

"But, Lydia, I _did_ hear her voice."

"She is dead, Mistress Bell. That was another child."

"Another child! Let me see the other child."

Lydia was obliged to call in Cecile, who came forward with a sweet
grave face, and stood gently by the little tremulous old woman, and
took her hand, and then stooped down to kiss her.

Cecile was interested in such great age, and kept saying to herself,
"Perhaps my grandmother away in the Pyrenees is like this very old
woman," and when Mrs. Bell warmly returned her soft little caress,
Cecile wondered to herself if this was like the mother's kiss her