“Have I frightened you, dear?” she said; “but oh, if you knew how strangely, how wonderfully like you are to my darling mother.”

“Your mother?” stammered Hetty.

“Such a sweet beauty of a young mother she was as I remember her—­and I have a likeness of her at your age;—­it seems to me that you are the living image of it.”

“How very strange!” said Hetty, with a thrill of delight at the thought that she was like anybody belonging to this charming girl, especially her mother.  Hetty had fascinating fancies of her own about an ideal mother; no real mother she had known had ever reached her standard.  But Reine’s mother must surely have been up to the mark.  And to be told that she, Hetty, was like her!  She drew nearer to Reine, who put her arms round her neck and kissed her.

“I can’t tell you how I feel,” said Reine, holding her off and looking at her.  “I feel as if you belonged to me someway.”

“Don’t turn my head,” pleaded Hetty wistfully.  “Please remember I have no relations and must not expect to be loved.  I have had great trouble about that; and it has been very hard for them to manage me.”

“Has it?” said Reine doubtfully.

“As I’m now nearly grown up,” said Hetty, “of course I have had to learn to behave myself; so don’t spoil me.”

“I wish I could,” said Reine.  “I mean I wish I could get the chance.  Oh, don’t look at me like that.  But yes, do.  Oh, Hetty, my mother, my mother!”

And Reine leaned her arms on the table, and laid her head on them, and wept.

Hetty stood by wondering, and stroked her head timidly for sympathy.

“Don’t think me a great goose,” said Reine, looking up.  And then suddenly silent again she sat staring at Hetty.  After a few moments she sprang up and folded her arms round her and held her close.

“You strange darling, where have you come from; and how am I ever to let you go again?”

A step was heard at the door, and Reine and Hetty instinctively withdrew from each other’s embrace.  There was something sacred about the feeling which had so suddenly and unexpectedly overpowered them both.

Nell came in.

“Reine, I have been looking for you everywhere.”

“I came here to thank Miss Gray for her design,” said Reine, “and I don’t think I have even mentioned it yet.”

“You are as pale as death,” said Nell.  “What has Hetty been saying to you?”

“Nothing,” said Reine absently, her eyes going back to Hetty’s face and fixing themselves there.

“How you stare at each other!” said Nell, “and I declare your two faces are almost the same this moment.”

“Nell!”

“I always said you were like each other, though Phyllis could not see it.  Now I am sure of it.”

A wild look came into Reine’s face.

“That would be too strange,” she said; “for she is so like—­so like—­some one—­Oh, Nell, she is the very image of my mother!”