“She? Who?” John Travis was momentarily bewildered.
“Miss Deerin’, Miss Virginia Deerin’. Ain’t it a pretty name? An’ she knows all ’bout that beautiful place of roses. I was hankerin’ so for some, an’ she went out to see ’f she could find any. I couldn’t know you’d bring me such a lovely lot. Don’t you know how Bess alwers b’l’eved you’d come, an’ she b’l’eves jes’ that way. An’ she likes you so.”
“Virginia Deering!” John Travis said under his breath, his whole frame athrill with subtle emotion, “what makes you think she likes me?” he asked softly.
“Oh, can’t you tell it in any one’s voice? An’ their eyes get soft an’ strange, ’s if they were lookin’ ’way off, an’ saw the other one comin’, jes’ ’s Bess come to me that day.”
Then Dil raised a little and glanced out of the window, listened smilingly.
“She’s come back. That’s her voice. An’ oh, won’t she be glad to see you an’ the heaps an’ heaps of wild roses!”
XVI—ACROSS THE RIVER
Virginia Deering put by the children’s clinging hands. Her mission had not been very successful. In one shady depth she had found a cluster of belated roses, their mates having blossomed and gone. But the children had enjoyed a rare pleasure.
She came up with a sort of reverent hesitation. She had been thinking of the journey “betwixt this and dawn,” and trying with weak hands to push it farther and farther off, as we always do. Miss Mary had gone to the infirmary. The room was so still; then a soft, glad cry trembled on the air,—
“He’s come, Miss Deerin’! An’ oh, you won’t mind, but he’s been to that wild rose place, an’ I think he’s brought them all to me. Look, look!” and she stretched out her little hands.