A week later, and Natalie received a letter from her mother, in reply to her account of her visit to the mysterious artist.  It ran thus:—­

“MY DEAR DAUGHTER,—­It was with joy, mingled with a shade of sadness, that I perused your last.  Not that you, my innocent child, could impart other than pleasure to the meanest of weak mortals, yet it brought afresh to my mind a subject, which, though it marks one of the happiest moments of my life, owing to peculiar circumstances,—­the memory of my dear husband being closely associated therewith,—­brings to my heart, also, a shadow of grief.  That which I would say has to do with yourself, my daughter, yet I cannot commission my pen to the revealing of this long-buried secret.  I would tell you with my own lips, of the mystery which hangs around your birth, for I would seal the tale with a mother’s kiss, looking upon my foster-child for an assurance of love undiminished.  You must now come home to us.  I can bear this separation no longer.  The time has come when our dear little Sea-flower, for so many years the sunshine of our home, shall test the strength of her affection for those who will ever regard her—­a blessing from that heavenly shore.  Say to the author of the Madonna and child, that I would earnestly wish that he may accompany you home, as he may be informed of that which so nearly concerns his happiness.  Adieu, my daughter, until I shall see you once more.  From your affectionate mother.”

Natalie folded the letter, and repeating aloud, “can I ever love my mother less?” she leaned her head upon her hand, and wept.

The day drew near when the Sea-flower, accompanied by Mr. Alboni, (for such was the name of the gentlemanly artist,) and Clarence Delwood, should seek her island home.  This was anything but a pleasant anticipation for Winnie, for since her mother’s death she had learned to lean upon Natalie, though younger than herself, and had received from her in times of trial, such sweet counsel as would sink into her heart, giving her new strength, making her a wiser and a better being.  In the time which Natalie had been in the Santon family, there had been a perceptible change in the character of the beautiful coquettish heiress.  Those blemishes which the faithful mother had discovered, upspringing in her daughter’s youthful heart, marring her otherwise lovable character, had been erased; not that she had lost in any degree that gay, cheery openness of heart which we love so well to meet,—­she was yet the Winnie Santon of days which had known no lowering skies, the singing bird of a June morning,—­save that an occasional plaintive note, breathed out upon youth’s freshness of life’s realities.