"It is all so wonderful when you really come to learn about it," she said with a gentle sigh.
The blaze was shining on her now, and bringing out the puzzles on the fair child's face. She was very intelligent, if she was slow at figures.
"Doris,"—after a long pause,—"how would you like to live here?"
"Oh, Uncle Win, it would be the most splendid thing——"
"I fancied you might like to change. And there are some matters connected with your education—why, what is it, Doris?"
She raised her eyes an instant, then they drooped and he saw the dark fringe beaded with tears. She took a long quivering inspiration.
"Uncle Win—I don't believe I can." The words came very slowly. "You see Betty is away, and Uncle Leverett missed me very much. He said the other night I was his little girl, and he was lonesome——"
"I shall be lonesome when you are gone."
"But you have so many books and things, and people coming, and—I should like to stay. Oh, I do like you so." She put her slim arm around his neck and laid her cheek against his. "Sometimes it seems as if you were like what I remember of papa. I only saw such a little of him, you know, after I went to England. But Aunt Elizabeth says it is the hard things that are right always. She would have Jimmie boy, you know, if I stayed, but Uncle Leverett wants me. I can just feel how it is, but I don't know how to explain it. He has always been so good to me. And that day on the ship he said, 'Is this my little girl?' and I was so glad to really belong to someone again——"
She was crying softly. He felt the tears on his cheek. Her simple heroism touched him.