“Strange, isn’t it?” said Margaret to her husband, who was standing in the outer door, and who had at that moment discovered Mrs. Hamilton lying near the spring.

Instantly they were at her side, and Margaret involuntarily shuddered as she recognized her stepmother, and guessed why she was there.  Taking her in his arms, Mr. Elwyn bore her back to the house, and Margaret, filling a pitcher with water, bathed her face, moistened her lips, and applied other restoratives, until she revived enough to say: 

“More water, Willie.  Give me more water!”

Eagerly she drained the goblet which Margaret held to her lips, and was about drinking the second, when her eyes for the first time sought Margaret’s face.  With a cry between a groan and a scream she lay back upon her pillows, saying, “Margaret Hamilton, how came you here?  What have you to do with me, and why do you give me water?  Didn’t I refuse it to Willie, when he begged so earnestly for it in the nighttime?  But I’ve been paid—­a thousand times paid—­left by my own child to die alone!”

Margaret was about asking for Lenora, when the young lady herself appeared.  She seemed for a moment greatly surprised at the sight of Margaret, and then bounding to her side, greeted her with much affection; while Mrs. Hamilton jealously looked on, muttering to herself.  “Loves everybody better than she does me, her own mother, who has done so much for her.”

Lenora made no reply to this, although she manifested much concern when Margaret told her in what state they had found her mother.

“I went for a few moments to visit a sick friend,” said she, “but told Hester to stay with mother until I returned; and I wonder much that she should leave her.”

“Lenora,” said Mrs. Hamilton, “Lenora, was that sick friend the old porter?”

Lenora answered in the affirmative; and then her mother, turning to Margaret, said: 

“You don’t know what a pest and torment this child has always been to me, and now when I am dying she deserts me for a low-lived fellow, old enough to be her father.”

Lenora’s eyes flashed scornfully upon her mother, but she made no answer, and as Mr. Elwyn was in haste to proceed on his journey, Margaret arose to go.  Lenora urged them to remain longer, but they declined; and as she accompanied them to the door, Margaret said: 

“Lenora, if your mother should die, and it would afford you any satisfaction to have me come, I will do so, for I suppose you have no near friends.”

Lenora hesitated a moment, and then whispering to Margaret of the relationship existing between herself and the old porter, she said, “He is sick and poor, but he is my own father, and I love him dearly.”

The tears came to Margaret’s eyes, for she thought of her own father, called home while his brown hair was scarcely touched with the frosts of time.  Wistfully Lenora watched the carriage as it disappeared from sight, and then half-reluctantly entered the sick-room, where, for the remainder of the afternoon, she endured her mother’s reproaches for having left her alone, and where once, when her patience was wholly exhausted, she said: