"Oh, Uncle Heath, you won't let me go back to Cousin Ellen, will you?" Eleanor said with entreaty in her tones.
He took her up in his lap and stroked her hair. "No, Miss Dimps, I have come on purpose to take you back home with me. On our way from California your Aunt Dora and I stopped to see your father and mother, and I have my pockets full of love for you." He did not say that Rock had sent his mother Eleanor's pitiful little letter and on account of this, more than anything else, Mrs. Heath Dallas and her husband had hurried home that Eleanor might come to them.
The little girl's hand stole into her uncle's pocket as if to gather up some of the love of which he spoke, and she nestled closer to him.
"Imagine my surprise when I called upon Mrs. Murdoch last evening to be told that you were not there," her Uncle Heath went on. "I was referred to our good friend, Dr. Sullivan, and here we are, ready to pick you up and carry you back with us."
"Weren't you s'prised not to see Sylvy or Bubbles come to the door at our house? And, oh, doesn't it look queer with the furniture in the parlor all switched around in a different way from that mamma used to have it?"
"I'm afraid those things made very little impression on me, for I was very anxious to see my little niece and didn't think of any one else. Now, how soon can you be ready to go back with me?"
A fit of coughing brought from the doctor: "Here, here, what is that? The child has the whooping-cough."
"Yes," said Eleanor between her gasps, "Mrs. Snyder told me so."
"Then, that settles it; you can't go back to Mrs. Murdoch. She'd sweep you out with a broom, and then go into hysterics for fear her children had caught the disease."
"Do you suppose they have?"