“I will take as much care of them as their own mother could,” she said, “and bring them to you when you are settled. We have already an invitation to visit the place with the horrible name—what is it? Craighelbyl. For Mrs. Wythburn has invited Margaret Miller and me to see for ourselves the working of the millennium which the new Don Quixote is bringing about; so if you will lend me the children, Mrs. Hancourt, I promise not to keep them or run away with them, but to return them to you, whole, and in good condition.” The little which Mrs. Hancourt knew of Tom was enough to assure her that her darlings would be quite safe in her care, and she felt that it would really be a relief to be free from the worry of them during that busy time; though she found it difficult to part from them even for a week or two. Tom, however, carried her point, and took the children with her. “It is a trying thing to be a mother, Margaret,” she said to her friend, “and very bad for the emotional part of a woman’s nature. Poor Mrs. Hancourt embraced those children and wept over them until her hands trembled, and her eyes were swollen, and she looked ready to faint with grief. She kissed their hands and their faces, and I think she would have kissed their feet if she could conveniently have got at them. It is a mysterious sort of love which a mother has, Margaret, but these children are darlings. They are asleep now; come and look at them.” The friends were walking in the Hornby grounds, and as Tom uttered the last words she lifted her eyes to the window of the room where she had left Sissie comfortably tucked into the dainty little bed which she and her sisters had prepared for her reception. The next moment a low cry of anguish broke from her, and Margaret, looking in the same direction, felt as if her heart froze with horror. The window had been pushed up, and standing outside on the sill was the little figure in white which Tom had promised to restore to her mother. The child’s nightdress floated in the breeze, and she was looking up to a swallow’s nest built in the roof, while clapping her tiny hands to see if she could make a bird fly from it. “Oh, God, have mercy!” groaned Margaret, with white lips. “Don’t let the child see us, Tom. Run upstairs; but do not startle her. Go into the room quietly, and hold out your arms.” Tom flew up the stairs, and Margaret stood below under the window, holding out the skirt of her dress to catch the child if she should fall. There were three flights of stairs, and it appeared to Tom that it took her an age to ascend them. She thought she could not pray; but body, soul, and spirit seemed to go up to God in one voiceless but impassioned cry of entreaty. She could scarcely breathe when she reached the door; but she opened it gently, and said softly, “Sissie! Sissie!” The child was too much interested in the nest to hear her, and Tom felt suddenly as if she had lost her voice.