“Your mother!” echoed Nell, gazing at Hetty and thinking she did not look like anybody’s mother, with her short frock and flowing hair.

“But there is the dinner-bell!” she cried, glad of the interruption; for Nell had a great dislike of anything like a sentimental scene.  “You must talk about all this afterwards, for we must not be late.”

“I will come,” said Reine, passing her handkerchief over her face.  “Do I look as if I had been crying.”

“Your nose is a little red,” said Nell; “but they will think it is the cold.”

“Then don’t say anything about this,” said Reine; “but I must come and see Hetty again.  Goodnight, darling little mother!”

“Reine, all my respect for you is gone,” said Nell as they hastened toward the dining-room.  “I thought you were as wise as Phyllis.  And to think of you crying and kissing like that because Hetty reminds you of—­”

“Don’t, Nell,” said Reine.  “I can’t bear any more just now.”

CHAPTER XIX.

IF SHE WAS DROWNED, HOW CAN SHE BE HETTY?

A few friends had joined the Wavertree family circle that evening, and Reine had no further opportunity of speaking about Hetty.  She was absent and thoughtful; but wakened up when asked to sing, and sang a thrilling little love song with such power and sweetness as went to everybody’s heart.  She was thinking as she sang of Hetty’s face, and it was her strange yearning for Hetty’s love that inspired her to sing as she did.

That night she could not sleep.  Her mother’s eyes, with the loving look she remembered so well, were gazing at her from all the corners of the room.  Her mind went back over the recollections of her childhood; and her father’s voice and her mother’s smiles were with her as though she had only said good-night to both parents an hour ago.  The lonely girl, who had everything that the world could offer her, except that which she longed for most, the affection of family and kindred, felt the very depths of her heart shaken by the experience of the past evening.  That a girl who seemed so much a part of herself should have risen up beside her, and yet be nothing to her, seemed something too curious to be understood.  Her imagination went to work upon the possibilities of Mr. Enderby’s being induced to give Hetty up to her altogether, to be her adopted sister and to live with her for evermore.  She was aware that people would distrust this sudden fancy for a stranger, and that opposition would probably be offered to her plan; but then she was not her own mistress; and by perseverance she must surely succeed in the end.

Oh, the delight of having a sister!  Reine had had a sister, a baby sister lost in infancy, and had often taken a sad pleasure in fancying what that sister might have been like if she had lived.  She had been six years younger than Reine.  Hetty was fifteen, about the age that the little sister might now have been.  Reine sat up in her bed and counted the years between fifteen and twenty-one twice over on her fingers to make perfectly sure.  Hetty was the very age of the little sister.  And so like her mother!  If the baby sister of whom she had been bereft could be still alive, then Reine would have declared she must be Hetty.