"Now let me set here on the edge of the bed, and you listen to me, Mis' Abbott. When I got Barbara's letter last night, I jest set for hours thinkin' it all over, and it all come to me of a sudden. Why, I need you so bad, Mis' Abbott, I wonder how I got along without you all this time. You know I got a lot of young people at my house, and no one with sense but myself to watch over them, and we need some one like yourself bad, and if you won't come I'll have to look around for some one else, and it'll put me to a lot of trouble." The old lady looked up wonderingly. "But what can I do, Drusilla?" "Oh, there's lots of things you kin do, but one thing special. When I went into the nursery last night and saw Mary Allen settin' there alone by the window, I said to myself, 'Mary needs a mother. She don't ever remember havin' a mother, and then I remembered you lost your little girl most forty years ago, and if she'd 'a' growed up she might 'a' had a little girl like Mary, and I want you to come and be a mother to my Mary and a grandmother to her baby." "Oh, is she grown up and married?" "Never mind, she's only a little child, a lovin' little child with a baby--and a sorrow. But you'll come and see your Mary in her eyes, and she'll have a mother and you a daughter again, and you'll both find happiness in each other. She needs you, Mis' Abbott, and you need her--Say you'll come." The old lady looked for a moment into Drusilla's eyes; then she broke into the hysterical sobbing of the old and helpless. "I didn't think no one needed me--no one wanted me. I thought I jest cumbered up the earth. Drusilla, do you think she really needs me, that any one really needs me, that I don't have to be a burden the rest of my days? Oh, if I thought some one wanted me--Perhaps it's my Mary come back to me--my Mary--my little girl--my little girl--" Drusilla let her cry, patting her hand softly from time to time. Then, when the storm had spent itself, she said: "Yes, it's your Mary come back to you. Don't you remember that you said your Mary had brown eyes--" "Yes,--yes--" and eager fingers were tugging at an old-fashioned locket hanging to a slender chain around her neck. "See--here she is--her eyes are brown and her hair all curled around her face, and her lips was just like a rose--and her face--oh, her pretty face--" Drusilla studied the picture carefully. "Yes, it's jest like this other Mary. Her hair is all in little curls around her face and her brown eyes jest like a child's, a wonderin' child's whose waitin' for her mother." The old lady rose from the bed. "Can I go now, Drusilla? Can I go _now?"_ "Are you well enough? Can you stand the trip?" Mrs. Abbott laughed. "Only sorrow makes one feeble, sorrow and loneliness; but hope makes one strong, and I got hope again--I want to live, Drusilla--I want to _live!"_ CHAPTER XVI