“Did I really ever live here?” asked Hetty; “really ever sleep in that bed?”

“That you did; and slept well and were happy,” said Mrs. Kane, beginning to feel hurt at the child’s coldness.  “Come now, have you never a kiss to give to the poor old mammy that nursed you?”

Hetty held up her round sweet face, as fair and fresh as a damask rose, to be kissed, and submitted to Mrs. Kane’s caresses rather from consciousness that she ought to do so, than from any warmth of gratitude in her own heart.  So far from being grateful to the homely sun-burned woman who hugged her, she felt a sort of resentment towards her for finding her on the sea-shore and making a cottage child of her.  It ought to have been Mrs. Rushton who found her, and perhaps she might have done so if Mrs. Kane or her husband had not been in such a hurry to take her in.  Then Grant could not have taunted her with being a village foundling, and nobody could have declared she was not intended to be a lady.

After her one embrace Mrs. Kane wiped her eyes and led the child out of the cottage to the carriage door.

“Ah, Mrs. Rushton!” she said, “this is your Hetty now and not mine any more.  What does a fine young lady like this want to know of a poor old mammy like me?  I gave her to you, body and soul, five years ago, and may the good God grant that I did right!  My little Hetty, that loved the big moon-daisies and the field-lilies like her life, is as dead as my other children who are in heaven.  It lies in your hands, ma’am, to make good or bad out of this one.”

“You are a curious woman, Mrs. Kane.  I thought you would have been delighted to see what a little queen I have made of her.”

“Queens require kingdoms, ma’am, and I make free to wish that your little lady may sit safe on her throne.  And after that I can only hope that she has more heart for you than for me.”

“Come, come, Mrs. Kane! you must not expect memory from a baby.  Hetty will soon renew her acquaintance with you, and you and she will be excellent friends.”

But Mrs. Kane was not slow to read the expression of Hetty’s large dark-fringed eyes, which, with all the frankness of childhood, betrayed their owner’s thoughts; and she knew that Hetty would find no pleasure in learning to recall the inglorious circumstances of her infancy.

Hetty had still less recollection of the Enderby family than of Mrs. Kane, but she felt very much more willing to be introduced to its members than to the cottage woman.  Looking upon herself as Mrs. Rushton’s only child, she considered the Wavertree children as her cousins and their father and mother as her uncle and aunt.  Mrs. Rushton had always talked to her of them in such a way as to lead her to regard them in this light.  Occasionally a strange little laugh or a few sarcastic words from Mrs. Rushton had grated on the child’s ear in the midst of her foster-mother’s pleasantly expressed anticipations of Hetty’s