“I will have patience. Oh! is that a new thing to me, poor bereaved mother that I am?” answered the old lady, shedding less bitter tears. “But who are you that speak so confidently, and so well?” “This—this is the young person who has done so much for our Elsie at the asylum,” said the old gentleman. “She has come to stay with her and live with us!” “What! This young girl,—this pretty, frail creature? I thought it was a woman!” “And so it is, if suffering can make a poor girl grow old,” replied Catharine, mournfully, for it was no other than Catharine Lacy, or rather Catharine De Marke, the lost wife, or, as she was only known then in that house, Catharine Barr. “And so you have been good to my Elsie?” persisted the old lady, wrapped up in the one idea of her heart so completely, that she left the poor girl’s words unheeded. “No wonder she loves you so much!” “Only wait a while, and she will love you as well. Perhaps in a little time she will know that you are her mother.” “Do you think so? Do you really think so?” said the old lady, with tears in her eyes. “See how she is looking at us!” was the reply. Mrs. Ford looked up; and there, in the dim hall, she saw her daughter watching them keenly. As their eyes met, the aged mother smiled through her tears, and the crazed woman began to glide slowly toward her, as if drawn by some magnetic force. “Oh, you have done this!” cried the old lady,—“she comes this way—she looks kinder!” and bowing her head, with a gush of tenderness she kissed the young girl. Instantly the insane woman darted forward and separated them. With her hands she held them apart, creeping softly toward her mother’s bosom. Not a word was spoken. But the swell and beat of that aged mother’s heart brought back true life into the cold bosom of the daughter. “Mother!” she said, lifting up her two palms and smoothing down the gray hair on each side of that wrinkled forehead. “Mother, how white your hair has grown.” “Thank God!” cried the aged husband, as he saw this. And in the flood of tender joy, through which these words were spoken, he lifted his clasped hands to heaven. The sound, tender and holy as it was, drove that poor creature back into her insanity. She turned from her mother, looked coldly upon the old man, and then, with a faint shake of the head, walked into the house again. “Come,” said the old man, tenderly, to his wife, “let us wait God’s time. It is something that she has known you for a minute!” “Something,” repeated the old lady, overwhelmed with gratitude; “John, it has given me new life.” Hand-in-hand, full of holy faith, and beautiful in the deep love of their old age, they followed Catharine and her charge into the family sitting-room. “Sit down here, my daughter, while I take off your bonnet and shawl,” said the old lady, wheeling an easy-chair to the window.