CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A HAPPY MEETING
Eva paused and looked up the broad stairway. At the top stood Mrs. Green, frantically beckoning to her.
“Eva,” the woman called in a stage whisper, “don’t go into the library. Come here, quick!”
The girl, puzzled indeed, was about to obey, when the portières parted and a tall, good-looking man appeared. He had been examining a painting near the doorway and had plainly heard the excited stage-whisper, the meaning of which he had easily interpreted.
Eva stepped back in surprise when she beheld the stranger, and, placing the vase of flowers on a near-by table, was about to hasten away, when the man stepped in front of her and held out both his hands. Eva, glancing at his face, saw in it an expression of love and tenderness such as she had not seen for many months. What could it mean? Then the stranger spoke. “Eva,” he said, “I am your Uncle Dick. Mrs. Friend wrote to me and—” But before he could say another word, the girl had thrown her arms about his neck, and was clinging to him as though she never meant to let him go again.
“Oh, Uncle Dick! Uncle Dick!” she sobbed. “Take me away from here! Please take me away! I’ve tried so hard to be brave, truly I have, but I’ve been so miserably lonesome without father or mother or any own folks to love me. How good it was of God to send you to me!”
There were tears also in the eyes of the strong man as he held the slender girl in a close embrace.
Meanwhile Mrs. Green, when she saw that the meeting was inevitable, had disappeared into her own room and locked the door. She did not care even to face her daughter just then. Soon she heard the front-door close, and, peering between the window-curtains, she saw the station-wagon roll away, and she was indeed glad that Mr. Dearman was taking Eva without further ado. The girl, she noted, was dressed as she had been when she came from the orphanage, and her own belongings were in the satchel which had been her father’s.
Adele, having galloped home at top speed, had told the wonderful news to her mother.
“Of course I am sorry to lose my new sister,” she ended, “but it never would have been the same as own folks for Eva. And, just think of it, mumsie, her very own uncle has come for her and is going to take her back west with him.”
“I am so glad for the poor child,” Mrs. Doring replied. “And now, Adele,” she added, “suppose you ride back and invite Eva and her uncle to come here and stay until they leave for the west.”
“Oh, mumsie,” the girl cried with shining eyes, as she gave her mother a bear-hug. “What nice things you do think of! I will go at once, for I am sure they will not be long at Mrs. Green’s, and the hotel is such a dismal place.”
Once more the girl mounted Firefly and galloped up the Lake Road. Before long she saw the station-wagon approaching, and she waved her hat joyously.
“Here comes Adele!” Eva exclaimed, as she looked up at her uncle with shining eyes. Her face, which had been pale an hour before, was glowing with rosy color. “You just can’t think how kind she has been to me,” Eva continued. “She found me crying one day soon after I came to the orphanage, and she has been just like a sister to me ever since, haven’t you, Adele?” she asked gayly, as Firefly whirled around beside the carriage.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Adele replied, not knowing in the least what her friend was talking about. “Oh, Eva!” she cried. “I’m so happy because now you have some own folks, and so is mumsie, and she sent me to ask you and your uncle to come to our house and stay until you go west.”
“How nice that will be!” Eva exclaimed. “When are we going west, Uncle Dick?”
“Just as soon as I can arrange to get a section through to Chicago. Probably by to-morrow noon.”
“Oh, so soon?” Adele asked dolefully, as she suddenly realized what losing Eva would mean to her. Mr. Dearman saw the troubled expression, and he was pleased to know that his niece had so good a friend, so he hastened to say, “Miss Adele, I do hope that you will be able to come west and make us a long visit. We have an attractive old ranch-house and I am sure that you would enjoy it, and, since you ride so well, perhaps you and Eva would like to be my cow-girls.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I love that life!” Adele replied. “If mumsie will allow me to, I will visit you next vacation.” Then she looked up anxiously as she asked, “Would that be too soon?”
“No, indeed!” laughed Uncle Dick. “The sooner the better. The ranch needs just such company.”
Mrs. Doring was at the front gate to greet Eva, and she repeated the invitation which Adele had already given.
“Thank you, Mrs. Doring,” Mr. Dearman replied. “My suit-case is at the hotel, and so I will remain there to-night, but I will gladly leave Eva with you until morning.”
What a happy visit the two girls had that evening, as they sat in the pretty wild-rose room! “Adele,” Eva exclaimed, as she put her arm about her friend, “I’m almost glad now that I was sent to the orphanage, for if I hadn’t been I would never have known you, and I do love you just as much as I could if you were my very own sister, I do believe.”
“And we’ll never, never lose each other, will we?” Adele replied.
“Of course not!” Eva exclaimed. “How could we? We’ll write letters often, and next summer you are to come to visit me. Your mother told Uncle Dick that she thought that you might, if some friend happened to be traveling west at that time.”
“Good!” Adele cried. “How I’d love to play cow-girl and dress in khaki, with a red handkerchief about my neck! Oh, Eva, won’t it be glorious to gallop across the desert trails?”
“It will be glorious to have you with me,” Eva replied, “but since I have never ridden horseback, I am not sure how much I shall enjoy that.”
“You’ll love it, I know,” Eva exclaimed. Then a tender light appeared in her eyes as she said, “Oh, Adele, just to think that I am going to have a real home with an own relative in it; and the best, the very best, of it is that Uncle Dick looks just as father did when he was younger. Why, Adele, I’m so happy, so happy, that it seems as though those dreadful days at Mrs. Green’s must have been just a dream.” Then, taking Adele’s hand, she added, “There is one request which I have to make, and that is, please be kind to poor Amanda.”
“I promise,” Adele replied. Then for a time the two girls, hand in hand, sat quietly in the gathering twilight, and then Eva said softly, “I’m thinking of my mother and of how happy she must be if she knows that at last her little girl is to have a real home and some one to love her.”