"It cannot be—yes, it is—oh, it is you, Mr. Wood. I never would have known you without hearing your voice," she said, giving me her hand cordially, "but you always come in such a funny way. Why didn't you bring Daddy with you? He has been promising to come for ever so long, but I am almost as glad to see you."
"How do you like it here, little Jim?" I asked, after she was seated near me.
"I never thought there was such a fine place. The girls here are so nice and all the teachers are very kind to me—I am making splendid progress, but tell me about Daddy—where is he and how did everything turn out?"
I took great pains to detail all that happened after she left and the success of her father. By this means I prepared her to testify in a natural way and told her he had bought a big plant in Georgia where he was now, but that he would return before Christmas. She asked a great many questions in open-eyed wonder, her early training in practical business enabling her to understand easily, but when through she lapsed into manifest disappointment.
"Then I will never go back to the Keys to live? And I won't have my boat Titian, and won't Daddy have the Sprite? And Don—what will become of old Don?"
"You will either live in New York or down in Georgia, but he has kept your Titian, and made the Sprite over for his own use. Don went South with him."
"But, then, I will never see my flowers, or Nereid, or hear the music among the beautiful plants and forests at the bottom of the Gulf? Oh, I would like to hear the sweet music of the sea again. Do you know that sometimes our music instructress plays for me so delightfully I can almost go to sleep as I wanted to down in the water? She is wonderful and has been so kind to me; I wonder why I never had a mother? I have asked Daddy about my mother, and asked him to take me to where she is buried. All the other girls here have mothers they love so much, and if I saw where she was buried I would love her, too, as they do their living mothers. You have known Daddy a long time. Did you know my mother, too?" she asked sorrowfully.
"Yes, I knew your mother long before you were born."
"Oh, Mr. Wood, tell me—what was she like. I have always wanted to know. Daddy never liked to talk about it. One of my teachers, the one I room with, who is so good to me when I get lonesome, has asked me. Tell me, Mr. Wood," she asked, leaning toward me impulsively, her eyes shining like bright stars.