Alice now went softly upstairs. She found Ellen's door a little ajar, and looking in, could see Ellen seated in a rocking-chair between the door and the fire, in her double gown, and with her hymn-book in her hand. It happened that Ellen had spent a good part of that afternoon in crying for her lost letter; and the face that she turned to the door on hearing some slight noise outside was very white and thin indeed; and though it was placid too, her eye searched the crack of the door with a keen wistfulness that went to Alice's heart. But as the door was gently pushed open, and the eye caught the figure that stood behind it, the sudden and entire change of expression took away all her powers of speech. Ellen's face became radiant; she rose from her chair, and as Alice came silently in and kneeling down to be near her, took her in her arms, Ellen put both hers round Alice's neck and laid her face there; one was too happy and the other too touched to say a word. "My poor child!" was Alice's first expression. "No, I ain't," said Ellen, tightening the squeeze of her arms round Alice's neck; "I am not poor at all now." Alice presently rose, sat down in the rocking-chair, and took Ellen in her lap; and Ellen rested her head on her bosom, as she had been wont to do of old time on her mother's. "I am too happy," she murmured. But she was weeping, and the current of tears seemed to gather force as it flowed. What was little Ellen thinking of just then? Oh! those times gone by, when she had sat just so; her head pillowed on another as gentle a breast; kind arms wrapped round her, just as now; the same little old double-gown; the same weak, helpless feeling; the same committing herself to the strength and care of another; how much the same, and oh! how much not the same! And Ellen knew both. Blessing as she did the breast on which she leaned and the arms whose pressure she felt, they yet reminded her sadly of those most loved and so very far away; and it was an odd mixture of relief and regret, joy and sorrow, gratified and ungratified affection, that opened the sluices of her eyes. Tears poured. "What is the matter, my love?" said Alice softly. "I don't know," whispered Ellen. "Are you so glad to see me? or so sorry? or what is it?" "Oh, glad and sorry both, I think," said Ellen, with a long breath, and sitting up. "Have you wanted me so much, my poor child?" "I cannot tell you how much," said Ellen, her words cut short. "And didn't you know that I have been sick too? What did you think had become of me? Why, Mrs. Vawse was with me a whole week, and this is the very first day I have been able to go out. It is so fine to-day I was permitted to ride Sharp down." "Was that it?" said Ellen. "I did wonder, Miss Alice; I did wonder very much why you did not come to see me; but I never liked to ask Aunt Fortune, because----" "Because what?"