Five years had changed Margaret sadly.  The high-spirited, blooming, happy woman, was now a meek, quiet, pale-faced sufferer.  Lilly had grown finely, all unconscious of her mother’s suffering, and was a very beautiful child.  She attracted the notice of everyone.

“Aunt Hannah,” said Margaret, one day after this long, long period of suffering, “I have what you will call a strange idea in my mind.  It has been visiting me for weeks, and now I feel much inclined to act from its dictates.  You know that Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are going to Paris next month.  Ever since Mrs. Edwards mentioned it to me, I have felt a desire to go with them.  I don’t know why, but so it is.  I think it would do me good to go to Paris and spend a few months there.  When a young girl, I always had a great desire to see London and Paris; and this desire is again in my mind.”

“I would go, then,” said Aunt Hannah, who thought favourably of any thing likely to divert the mind of her niece from the brooding melancholy in which it was shrouded.

To Paris Mrs. Canning went, accompanied by her little daughter, who was the favourite of every one on board the steamer in which they sailed.  In this gray city, however, she did not attain as much relief of mind as she had anticipated.  She found it almost impossible to take interest in any thing, and soon began to long for the time to come when she could go back to the home and heart of her good Aunt Hannah.  The greatest pleasure she took was in going with Lilly to the Gardens of the Tuileries, and amid the crowd there to feel alone with nature in some of her most beautiful aspects.  Lilly was always delighted to get there, and never failed to bring something in her pocket for the pure white swans that floated so gracefully in the marble basin into which the water dashed cool and sparkling from beautiful fountains.

One day, while the child was playing at a short distance from her mother, a man seated beside a bronze statue, over which drooped a large orange tree, fixed his eyes upon her admiringly, as hundreds of others had done.  Presently she came up and stood close to him, looking up into the face of the statue.  The man said something to her in French, but Lilly only smiled and shook her head.

“What is your name, dear?” he then said in English.

“Lilly,” replied the child.

A quick change passed over the man’s face.  With much more interest in his voice, he said—­

“Where do you live?  In London?”

“Oh no, sir; I live in America.”

“What is your name besides Lilly?”

“Lilly Canning, sir.”

The man now became strongly agitated.  But he contended vigorously with his feelings.

“Where is your mother, dear?” he asked, taking her hand as he spoke, and gently pressing it between his own.

“She is here, sir,” returned Lilly, looking inquiringly into the man’s face.

“Here!”