Permission had been given for Emilia to return to her mother, and as Veronica had some purchases to make in the city, she undertook to drive in in the coach, and bring out her little sister.  I should have availed myself of the opportunity of going back with her but that Millicent would have had to spend the day alone, and I could see that, though her mother’s heart hungered for the little one, yet she dreaded the child’s seeing her altered face.  She said she hoped Veronica might not return till twilight or dusk, so that Emilia might recognize her by her voice and her kisses before seeing her face.

She had been bidden to be out in the air, and she and I had walked down the avenue in search of some cukoo-flowers and king-cups that grew by the canal below.  She loved them, she said, because they grew at home by the banks of the Thames, and she was going to dress some beaupots to make her chamber gay for Emilia.  The gardens might be her own, but she stood in too much awe of the gardener to touch a tulip or a flower-de-luce, scarce even a lily of the valley; but when I taxed her with it, she smiled and said she should ever love the English wild-flowers best.

So we were walking back under the shade of the budding lime-tress when a coach came rolling behind us.  The horses were not the fat dappled grays of the establishment, but brown ones, and Millicent, apprehending a visit from some of her late husband’s kindred, and unwilling to be seen before they reached the house, drew behind a tree, hoping to be out of sight.

She had, however, been descried.  The carriage stopped.  There was a joyful cry in good English of ‘Mother! mother! mother!’ and the little maiden flew headlong into her arms, while at the same moment my dear brother, looking indeed thin, but most noble, most handsome, embraced me.  He explained in a few words that Mademoiselle van Hunker was dining with her future mother-in-law, and that she had permitted him to have the honour of giving up his charge to Madame.

Millicent looked up at him with the eyes that could not but be sweet, and began to utter her thanks, while he smiled and said that the pleasure to him and Annora had been so great that the obligation was theirs.

The little girl, now holding her hand, was peering up curiously under her hood, and broke upon their stiffness and formality by a sudden outcry: 

’No! no! mother is not ugly like Vronikje.  She shall not be ugly.  She is Emilia’s own dear pretty mother, and nobody shall say no.’

No doubt the little one felt the inward attraction of child to mother, that something which so infinitely surpasses mere complexion, and as she had been warned of the change, and had seen it in her sister, she was really agreeable surprised, and above all felt that she had her mother again.

Millicent clasped her to her bosom in a transport of joy, while Eustace exclaimed: 

’The little maid is right; most deeply right.  That which truly matters can never be taken away.’