"
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.
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