"That is an excellent picture," he said; "it ought to be framed.
It is too good to be hidden in a folio. You have just caught the
right coloring, Lillian; one can almost see the sun sparkling on
the water. Where is this sea-view taken from?"
"Do you not know it?" she asked, looking at him with wonder in
her eyes. "It is from Knutsford--mamma's home."
Ronald looked up in sudden, pained surprise.
"Mamma's home!" The words smote him like a blow. He remembered
Dora's offense--her cold letter, her hurried flight, his own
firm resolve never to receive her in his home again--but he had
not remembered that the children must love her--that she was
part of their lives. He could not drive her memory from their
minds. There before him lay the pretty picture of "mamma's
home."
"This," said Lillian, "is the Elms. See those grand old trees,
papa! This is the window of Mamma's room, and this was our
study."
He looked with wonder. This, then, was Dora's home--the pretty,
quaint homestead standing in the midst of the green meadows. As
he gazed, he half wondered what the Dora who for fifteen years
had lived there could be like.
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