"Ah," said Sister Helen Vincula, "I hope with you." She reached for the little night-gown, and she smoothed it in her fingers. "Ah," she said, "the child has grown since she has been with us, so much, but the little gown--it looks--really smaller to me--"

But the lady was not listening to Sister Helen Vincula. She had her arms about Bessie Bell's shoulders and was looking into her face.

"I am glad I brought the little gown," Sister Helen Vincula was saying; "the child was so ill, so fearfully thin, I feared--it was only a fancy--I feared--"

"No, no, no," cried the lady, drawing Bessie Bell closer.

"Now nearly two years she has been with us," said Sister Helen Vincula.

"She was just old enough to be put to the table in a high chair," said the lady. "Ah, how she did laugh and crow and jump when her father took the peac.o.c.k-feather-fly-brush from the maid, and waved it in front of her! She would seize the ends of the feathers, and laugh and crow louder than ever, and hide her laughing little face deep into the feathers--Ah me--"

But Bessie Bell said nothing, nor remembered anything. For she did not know that the lady was talking of something green, and blue, and soft, and brown.

And it was Sister Justina, and not Sister Helen Vincula, who had told her to be ashamed when she had cried: Pretty! Pretty! Pretty! as the something green, and blue, and soft, and brown was waved to and fro in front of her until she seized it and buried her little face in it for the joy--of remembering--

So Sister Helen Vincula did not know, and Bessie Bell did not remember, while the lady talked.

Only long after, when Bessie Bell grew much larger, it happened that whenever she saw an old-fashioned peac.o.c.k-feather-fly-brush--at first, just for a second, she felt very glad; and then, just for a second, she felt very sorry; and she never knew or could remember why. She forgot after awhile how she had been so full of sorrow when Sister Justina said, Be Ashamed, and she could no longer remember why she was glad; only a feeling of both was left--and she could not tell how or why.

But the lady would not let Bessie Bell get far from her, and Bessie did not care to go far from her. She stood with her little pink hands folded, and looked up at the lady who held to her so closely.

Sister Helen Vincula said: "It was Sister Theckla who spent that summer with the sick, and it was Sister Theckla who brought the child to us.

Can you not go home with us? Or I could write to you at once--"

"No," said the lady. "I will go. The child shall not leave me--'

"And we will talk to Sister Theckla, and she will tell us all that she knows, and then--G.o.d willing--we shall know all."

The lady said: "Yes, we will all go together. We will go at once."

And so it was that when Sister Theckla had told all that she knew, then the lady knew (as she always had said she had known), past all doubting, that Bessie Bell had really found what she most wished for.

But we do not know how long it was before Bessie Bell really understood that the Wisest Woman in the world, who knew what little girls had almost forgotten how to remember, was her own Mother.

When all the people on the high, cool mountains heard about all that the lady knew, and all that Sister Theckla told, and all that Bessie Bell had found, they were all as glad as they could be.

And when the boy with the long-striped-stocking-legs heard all about it he said: "That is fine! Bessie Bell said that she would find a Mama--and she has!"