Mrs. Gray took in high dudgeon the consent her daughter had given to the return of Mary Jones. She scarcely looked at that young lady the whole day, and when she was gone, and Jane had retired to her little room, and mother and daughter sat together, Rachel got a lecture. "You have no spirit," indignantly said Mrs. Gray. "What! after the little hussy behaving so shamefully, you take her back for the asking!" "She is but a child," gently observed Rachel. "But her father ain't a child, is he?" Rachel smiled. "Indeed, mother, he is not much better," she replied. "I tell you, that you ain't got a bit of spirit," angrily resumed Mrs. Gray. "The little imperent hussy! to think of playing her tricks here! And do you think I'm agoing to stand that?" added Mrs. Gray, warming with her subject; "no, that I ain't! See if I don't turn her out of doors to-morrow morning." "Oh! mother, mother, do not!" cried Rachel, alarmed at the threat; "think that she is but a child, after all. And, oh, mother!" she added with a sigh, "have you never noticed how like she is to what our own little Jane once was?" Mrs. Gray remained mute. She looked back in the past for the image of her lost child. She saw a pale face, with blue eyes and fair hair, like Mary's. Never before had the resemblance struck her; when it came, it acted with overpowering force on a nature which, though rugged, and stern, and embittered by age and sorrows, was neither cold nor forgetful. One solitary love, but ardent and impassioned, had Sarah Gray known, in her life of three-score and ten--the love of a harsh, but devoted mother for an only child. For that child's sake had its father, whom she had married more for prudential reasons than for motives of affection, become dear to her heart. He was the father of her Jane. For that child's sake, had she, without repining, borne the burden of Rachel. Rachel was the sister of her Jane. Never should Rachel want, whilst she had heart and hands to work, and earn her a bit of bread. But when this much-loved child, after ripening to early youth, withered and dropped from the tree of life; when she was laid to sleep in a premature grave, all trace of the holy and beautiful tenderness which gives its grace to womanhood, seemed to pass away from the bereaved mother's heart. She became more harsh, more morose than she had ever been, and had it been worth the world's while to note or record it, of her too it might have been said, as it was of England's childless King, "that from one sad day she smiled no more." And now, when she heard Rachel, when in her mind she compared the living with the dead, strength, pride, fortitude forsook her, her stern features worked, her aged bosom heaved, passionate tears flowed down her wrinkled cheek. "Oh! my darling--my lost darling!" she cried, in broken accents, "would I could have died for thee! would thou wert here to-day! would my old bones filled thy young grave!"