The Childrens Pilgrimage | Page 5

had a gay time. She had no children of her own, and I
knew she envied me my Lovedy beyond words.
"I was so hurt with Lovedy for saying she would leave me for her Aunt
Fanny, that I said, bitter and sharp, she might do as she liked, and that I
did not care.
"Then she turned very red and went away and sat down and wrote a
letter, and I knew she had made up her mind to leave me. Still I wasn't
really frightened. I said to myself, I'll pretend to let her have her own
way, and she'll come round fast enough; and I began to get ready for
my wedding, and took no heed of Lovedy. The night before I was
married she came to me again. She was white as a sheet, and all the
hardness had gone out of her.
"'Mother, mother, mother,' she said, and she put her dear, bonnie arms
round me and clasped me tight to her. 'Mother, give him up, for
Lovedy's sake; it will break my heart, mother. Mother, I am jealous; I
must have you altogether or not at all. Stay at home with your own
Lovedy, for pity's sake, for pity's sake.'
"Of course I soothed her and petted her, and I think--I do think now
--that she, poor darling, had a kind of notion I was going to yield, and
that night she slept in my arms.

"The next morning I put on my neat new dress and bonnet, and went
into her room.
"'Lovedy, will you come to church to see your mother married?'
"I never forgot--never, never, the look she gave me. She went white as
marble, and her eyes blazed at me and then grew hard, and she put her
head down on her hands, and, do all in my power, I could not get a
word out of her.
"Well, Cecile, yer father and I were married, and when we came back
Lovedy was gone. There was just a little bit of a note, all blotted with
tears, on the table. Cecile, I have got that little note, and you must put it
in my coffin. These words were writ on it by my poor girl: "'Mother,
you had no pity, so your Lovedy is gone. Good-by, mother.'
"Yes, Cecile, that was the note, and what it said was true. My Lovedy
was gone. She had disappeared, and so had her Aunt Fanny, and never,
never from that hour have I heard one single word of Lovedy."
Mrs. D'Albert paused here. The telling of her tale seemed to have
changed her. In talking of her child the hard look had left her face, an
expression almost beautiful in its love and longing filled her poor dim
eyes, and when Cecile, in her sympathy, slipped her little hand into
hers, she did not resist the pressure.
"Yes, Cecile," she continued, turning to the little girl, "I lost
Lovedy--more surely than if she was dead, was she torn from me. I
never got one clew to her. Yer father did all he could for me; he was
more than kind, he did pity me, and he made every inquiry for my girl
and advertised for her, but her aunt had taken her out of England, and I
never heard--I never heard of my Lovedy from the day I married yer
father, Cecile. It changed me, child; it changed me most bitter. I grew
hard, and I never could love you nor Maurice, no, nor even yer good
father, very much after that. I always looked upon you three as the
people who took by bonnie girl away. It was unfair of me. Now, as I'm
dying, I'll allow as it was real unfair, but the pain and hunger in my
heart was most awful to bear. You'll forgive me for never loving you,

when you think of all the pain I had to bear, Cecile."
"Yes, poor stepmother," answered the little girl, stooping down and
kissing her hand. "And, oh!" continued Cecile with fervor, "I wish--I
wish I could find Lovedy for you again."
"Why, Cecile, that's just what you've got to do," said her stepmother;
"you've got to look for Lovedy: you're a very young girl; you're only a
child; but you've got to go on looking, always --always until you find
her. The finding of my Lovedy is to be yer life-work, Cecile. I don't
want you to begin now, not till you're older and have got more sense;
but you has to keep it firm in yer head, and in two or three years' time
you must begin. You must go on looking until you find my Lovedy.
That is what you have to promise me before I die."
"Yes, stepmother."
"Look