‘My little Salome,’ whispered Isabel, squeezing Clara’s hand, ’our quiet one.  She could not sleep for expecting papa, and now she is in a fit of shy delight; she can’t shout with the others; she can only nurse his umbrella.’

Just then James made a desperate demonstration, amid peals of laughter from his daughters.  ’We are stopping the way!  Get out, you unruly monsters!  Let go, Kitty—­Mercy; I shall kick!  Mamma, catch this ball;’ making a feint of tossing the crowing Fanny at her.

Assuredly, thought Clara, pity was wasted; there was not one too many.  And then began the happy exulting introductions, and a laugh at little Mercy, who stood blank and open-mouthed, gazing up and up her tall aunt, as if there were no coming to the top of her.  Clara sat down on the stairs, to bring her face to a level, and struck up a friendship with her on the spot, while James lilted up his little Salome, her joy still too deep and reserved for manifestation; only without a word she nestled close to him, laid her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes, as if languid with excess of rapture-a pretty contrast to her sister’s frantic delight, which presently alarmed James lest it should disturb his uncle, and he called them up-stairs.

But Clara must first run to the House Beautiful, and little Mercy must needs come to show her the way, and trotted up before her, consequentially announcing, ‘Aunt Cara.’  Miss Faithfull alone was present; and, without speaking, Clara dropped on the ground, laid her head on her dear old friend’s lap, and little Mercy exclaimed, in wondering alarm, ‘Aunt Cara naughty—­Aunt Cara crying!’

‘My darling,’ said Miss Faithfull, as she kissed Clara’s brow and stroked her long flaxen hair, ’you have gone through a great deal.  We must try to make you happy in your poor old home.’

’Oh, no! oh, no!  It is happiness!  Oh! such happiness! but I don’t know what to do with it, and I want granny!’

She was almost like little Salome; the flood of bliss in returning home, joined with the missing of the one dearest welcome, had come on her so suddenly that she was almost stifled, till she had been calmed and soothed by the brief interval of quiet with her dear old friend.  She returned to No. 5, there to find that her uncle was going to bed, and Charlotte, pink and beautiful with delight, was running about in attendance on Jane.  She went up straight to her own little room, which had been set out exactly as in former times, so that she could feel as if she had been not a day absent; and she lost not a moment in adding to it all the other little treasures which made it fully like her own.  She looked out at the Ormersfield trees, and smiled to think how well Louis’s advice had turned out; and then she sighed, in the fear that it might yet be her duty to leave home.  If her uncle could live without her, she must tear herself away, and work for his maintenance.