Regularly each day, when the sun nears the western horizon, Maggie steals away to the cottage, and the lonely woman, waiting for her on the rude bench by the door, can tell her bounding footstep from all others which pass that way.  She does not say much now herself; but the sound of Maggie’s voice, talking to her in the gathering twilight, is the sweetest she has ever heard; and so she sits and listens, while her hands work nervously together, and her whole body trembles with a longing, intense desire to clasp the young girl to her bosom and claim her as her own.  But this she dare not do, for Madam Conway’s training has had its effect, and in Maggie’s bearing there is ever a degree of pride which forbids anything like undue familiarity.  And it was this very pride which Hagar liked to see, whispering often to herself, “Warren blood and Conway airs—­the two go well together.”

Sometimes a word or a look would make her start, they reminded her so forcibly of the dead; and once she said involuntarily:  “You are like your mother, Maggie.  Exactly what she was at your age.”

“My mother!” answered Maggie.  “You never talked to me of her; tell me of her now.  I did not suppose I was like her in anything.”

“Yes, in everything,” said old Hagar; “the same dark eyes and hair, the same bright red cheeks, the same—­”

“Why, Hagar, what can you mean?” interrupted Maggie.  “My mother had light blue eyes and fair brown hair, like Theo.  Grandma says I am not like her at all, while old Hannah, the cook, when she feels ill-natured and wishes to tease me, says I am the very image of Hester Hamilton.”

“And what if you are?  What if you are?” eagerly rejoined old Hagar.  “Would you feel badly to know you looked like Hester?” and the old woman bent anxiously forward to hear the answer:  “Not for myself, perhaps, provided Hester was handsome, for I think a good deal of beauty, that’s a fact; but it would annoy grandma terribly to have me look like a servant.  She might fancy I was Hester’s daughter, for she wonders every day where I get my low-bred ways, as she calls my liking to sing and laugh and be natural.”

“And s’posin’ Hester was your mother, would you care?” persisted Hagar.

“Of course I should,” answered Maggie, her large eyes opening wide at the strange question.  “I wouldn’t for the whole world be anybody but Maggie Miller, just who I am.  To be sure, I get awfully out of patience with grandma and Mrs. Jeffrey for talking so much about birth and blood and family, and all that sort of nonsense, but after all I wouldn’t for anything be poor and work as poor folks do.”

“I’ll never tell her, never,” muttered Hagar; and Maggie continued:  “What a queer habit you have of talking to yourself.  Did you always do so?”