As for Eva, she could not have enough of her.  She was intoxicated with the possession of this little creature of her own flesh and blood.

“She’s grown; she’s grown so tall,” she said, in a high, panting voice.  It was all she could seem to realize—­the fact that the child had grown so tall—­and it filled her at once with ineffable pain and delight.  She held the little thing so close to her that the two seemed fairly one.  “Mamma, mamma!” said Amabel again.

“She has—­grown so tall,” panted Eva.

Fanny went up to her and tried gently to loosen her grasp of the little girl.  In her heart she was not yet quite sure of her.  This fierceness of delight began to alarm her.  “Of course she has grown tall, Eva Tenny,” she said.  “It’s quite a while since you were—­taken sick.”

“I ain’t sick now,” said Eva, in a steady voice.  “I’m cured now.  The doctors say so.  You needn’t be afraid, Fanny Brewster.”

“Mamma, mamma!” said Amabel.  Eva bent down and kissed the little, delicate face; then she looked at her sister and at Andrew, and her own countenance seemed fairly illuminated.  “I ’ain’t told you all,” said she.  Then she stopped and hesitated.

“What is it, Eva?” asked Fanny, looking at her with increasing courage.  The tears were streaming openly down her cheeks.  “Oh, you poor girl, what have you been through?” she said.  “What is it?”

“I ’ain’t got to go through anything more,” said Eva, still with that rapt look over Amabel’s little, fair head.  “He’s—­come back.”

“Eva Tenny!”

“Yes, he has,” Eva went on, with such an air of inexpressible triumph that it had almost a religious quality in it.  “He has.  He left her a long time ago.  He—­he wanted to come back to me and Amabel, but he was ashamed, but finally he came to the asylum, and then it all rolled off, all the trouble.  The doctors said I had been getting better, but they didn’t know.  It was—­Jim’s comin’ back.  He’s took me home, and I’ve come for Amabel, and—­he’s got a job in Lloyd’s, and he’s bought me this new hat and cape.”  Eva flirted her free arm, and a sweep of jetted silk gleamed, then she tossed her head consciously to display a hat with a knot of pink roses.  Then she kissed Amabel again.  “Mamma’s come back,” she whispered.

“Mamma, mamma!” cried Amabel.

Andrew and Fanny looked at each other.

“Where is he?” asked Andrew, in a slow, halting voice.

Eva glanced from one to the other defiantly.  “He’s outside, waitin’ in the road,” said she; “but he ain’t comin’ in unless you treat him just the same as ever.  I’ve set my veto on that.”  Eva’s voice and manner as she said that were so unmistakably her own that all Fanny’s doubt of her sanity vanished.  She sobbed aloud.

“O God, I’m so thankful!  She’s come home, and she’s all right!  O God, I’m so thankful!”

“What about Jim?” asked Eva, with her old, proud, defiant look.