The tears were in this sweet woman’s eyes, whom everybody loved. Perhaps she did not mean every word she said--who does? but there was a general truth of feeling in it all, that kept her right. Cara ran straight into her arms, and cried upon her shoulder. Perhaps because she was frightened and distrustful in other particulars of her life, she was utterly believing here. Here was the ideal for which she had looked--a friend, who yet should be something more than a friend; more tender than Cara could remember her mother to have been, yet something like what an ideal mother, a mother of the imagination, would be. Sweet looks, still beautiful, the girl thought in the enthusiasm of her age, yet something subdued and mild with experience--an authority, a knowledge, a power which no contemporary could have. Cara abandoned herself in utter and total forgetfulness of all prejudices, resistances, and doubts, to this new influence. Her mother’s friend, the boys’ mother, who had been her own playmates, and about whom she was so curious, without knowing it--her nearest neighbour, her natural succour, a daughterless woman, while she was a motherless girl. Happiness seemed to come back to her with a leap. ‘I shall not mind if I may always come to you, and ask you about everything,’ she said. ‘And _of course_ you must do that. Did not Cherry tell you so? I thought Cherry would have been faithful to me. Ah! she did? then I am happy, dear; for if I have one weakness more than another it is that my friends should not give me up. But Cherry should have come with you,’ said Mrs. Meredith, shaking her head. ‘It was all for papa----’ ‘But that is what I find fault with--papa’s only daughter, only child, thinking for a moment that her happiness was not what he wanted most.’ Cara drooped her guilty head. She was guilty; yes, she did not deny it; but probably this goddess-woman, this ideal aid and succour, did not know how little in the happier days had been thought of Cara. _She_ had always thought of ‘the boys’ first of all; but then Mr. Meredith--Cara had an odd sort of recollection somehow that Mr. Meredith was not first, and that perhaps this might account for the other differences. So she did not say anything, but sat down on a stool at her new-old friend’s feet, and felt that the strange, rich, beautiful room had become home.