"And I should have known her, too. What a sad face it is, just as if there was a history hidden under it." Bessie said, and Grey replied, as be lifted her from the phaeton: "There is a history hidden there, and sometime I will tell it to you."
Then leading her to his aunt he said: "Auntie, I have brought you Bessie."
"Yes," Hannah answered, with a gasp, as her cold hands were clasped by the soft, warm ones of the young girl, who looked up at her curiously, wondering at her manner.
At sight of Bessie, Hannah had been startled by the likeness to the picture hidden away so many years, every feature of which was indelibly stamped upon her memory. Had that picture taken life and form, and was it confronting her now? It seemed so, and for an instant she grew cold and faint, and stood staring at the girl.
"Auntie, won't you kiss Bessie?" Grey said, and then the spell was broken, and taking the girl in her arms, Hannah kissed and cried over her as a fond mother cries over the child which has been lost and is restored to her again.
Hannah could not define to herself the feeling which took possession of her from the moment she saw Bessie standing there in the low, old-fashioned room, with the October sunshine falling on her golden hair and lighting up her beautiful face, still pale and worn from recent sickness. It was as if an angel had come suddenly to her, bringing the peace and rest she had never known since that awful night more than forty years ago, and she felt all her olden horror rolling away, as she watched Bessie going over the house, with Grey--; now up the crooked stairs to the room under the roof where Grey used to sleep when a boy, and where there were still the remains of a horse, and a boat which he had sailed in the big iron kettle by the well--; now down the cellar stairs to see the foundation of the big chimney which occupied the center of the house, and in which the swallows built their nests; now out to the well where the bucket hung, and then to the little bench where Grey used to sit and kick the side of the house, while the terror-stricken old man looked on trembling, lest the boards should give way and show what was hidden there! It was there yet, dust and ashes now, but still there, and Bessie sat down alone beside it, while Grey shivered as his grandfather had done, and drew her away as quickly as possible.