It was a picture of humble comfort and domestic happiness. The placid look of the old lady seemed to indicate that she had no anxieties to disturb her tranquillity. The cat, too, seemed to feel that dozing was the great work of her existence, as, coiled up on the hearth, she watched, with winking eyes, the rapid movements of the old lady’s fingers. Such was the general aspect of the room upon which the burning eyes of Margaret now rested. She stood for brief space peering in with an air of irresolution. At length she opened the outer door. A moment more, and the door of the inner room yielded to her touch, and she stood upon the threshold. The old lady looked up from her knitting, and uttered a half exclamation of terror as her eyes rested on the tall, forlorn woman standing before her, with her clothes hanging in wet folds about her person, and her hair falling in wild disorder about her face, from which she had now removed her bonnet. The cat, too, who had been roused from her nap, and who was as much unused to such company as her mistress, stood with her back arched in terror, gazing in dismay at the stranger. “Who are you?” asked the old lady, tremulously. “What do you want with me?” Margaret looked at her earnestly, and said, in a low voice: “You do not know me?” “No, I don’t know you,” said the old lady, shaking her head. “Is it thus a mother forgets her own child?” asked Margaret, looking fixedly at her. The old lady trembled, she looked with an earnest glance of inquiry at the wild, haggard face of her visitor, and then bursting into tears took a step forward, and opening her arms exclaimed,— “Margaret, my daughter!” The hard heart melted for a moment, tears gushed from eyes dry before, and the two were folded in a close embrace. Then the old lady drew back a step, and gazed long and earnestly at her daughter. “You find me changed, mother,” said Margaret, abruptly. “It is years since we met,” was the sad reply. “I might have expected to find you changed.” “But not _such_ a change,” replied Margaret. “It is not years alone that have wrought the change in me. But you don’t—you cannot see the greater change,” she continued with rapidity, “that has taken place in my heart. It is a woful change, mother.” Her mother marked, with alarm, the excitement of her manner, her quick breathing, and the flush upon her cheeks. “Your clothes are wet, Margaret,” she said, anxiously. “This terrible storm has drenched you. You must change them instantly, or you will get your death of cold.” “Ah, that reminds me,” said Margaret, waywardly, “you haven’t admired my clothes yet. They are very rich and becoming, are they not? This shawl,” and she lifted up the tattered rag and spread it out, while the rain dropped from it upon the floor, “have you ever seen a more beautiful one? And this dress,”—she held it up in her fingers,—“how much it resembles the soft silk I wore at my wedding—yes, my _wedding_,” she repeated, with startling emphasis.