"Come in!" and the opening door showed Dora seated upon a low chair, with Sunshine clasped in her arms, and fast asleep. She made a motion to rise upon seeing the visitors; but Mrs. Legrange, lifting her finger as imploring silence softly advanced, and bent with clasped hands and eager eyes over the sleeping child. Then, with the graceful instinct of a woman who knows and pities the wound in the heart of her less fortunate rival, she put her arms about Dora and the child, embracing both, and pressed her lips lightly upon Dora's cheek, devouringly upon Sunshine's lips. Dora started as if she had been stung, and a sudden tremor crossed the rigid calm of her demeanor. She had schooled herself to indifference, to neglect or to civil thanks worse than either: but this unexpected tenderness, this sisterly recognition, went straight through all its defences to her quivering heart; and she looked up piteously into the lovely face bent over her, whispering,-- "I am so glad you have found her! but I have nothing left half so dear." There was no reply; for Sunshine, without sound or movement, suddenly opened her eyes, and fixed them upon her mother's face, while deep in their blue depths grew a glad smile, breaking at last, like a veritable sungleam, all over her face, as, holding out her arms, she eagerly said,-- "I've come to heaven while I was asleep; and you're the angel that loves me so dearly well. I know you by your eyes." "The mother clasped her own,--as who shall blame her?-and Dora's arms and Dora's heart were empty, robbed of the nestling they had cherished,--empty, as she said to herself, turning from the sight of that maternal bliss, of the best love she had ever known, or could ever hope." Mr. Burroughs, who liked character-reading, watched her narrowly; and when, presently, the whole party returned to Mrs. Legrange's hotel, he quietly walked beside Dora, lingering a little, and detaining her out of hearing of Mrs. Legrange and Teddy, who walked on with Sunshine between them. "Is virtue its own reward, Miss Dora?" asked he abruptly, when almost half the distance between the two hotels was passed. Dora looked at him a little puzzled; and then, as she read the half-sympathizing, half-mocking expression of his face, answered,-- "You mean I am not happy in bringing Sunshine back to her mother; don't you?" "Exactly; and you told me once that no one ought to be rewarded for doing what is right, because it is reward enough to know that we are doing right." "And so it is. I don't want any reward," said Dora rather hastily. "No: but, if young Ginniss had not discovered the identity of the child, my cousin would not have been unhappier than she has been for two years; and you-would you not be at this moment better content with life?" Dora's clear eyes looked straight into his as she wonderingly asked,-- "Do you want me to say I am sorry Mrs. Legrange has found her child?"