For answer Papa Louis opened his arms, and Alaine went to him, resting her head on his shoulder and holding out her hand to Gerard. “And you, my brother?”
“Alaine, my sister.” He stooped and kissed her upon each cheek.
Then Michelle arose. “You claim her, all of you, when she was mine first, mine. My little baby all those years ago when my own little one died after they brought my young husband home to me, dead. My baby, who comforted me and who crept into my desolate heart. My girl, whom I cherished and cared for after her own sainted mother became an angel. Mine, whom I have cared for and wept over and nursed and loved. Go, all of you. Do not touch her, my little one, my baby, my heart. Come to me, my Alainette. I was dazed. I was blind. I was stupefied. Come to me, my baby, my daughter.”
Alaine’s arms went around Michelle’s neck. “God is good! God is good!” Michelle murmured, the tears running down her cheeks.
Meantime, Papa Louis turned to Mynheer van der Deen and his wife. “You will excuse this, my friends. We are overcome, and we forget to thank you for bringing us our daughter.”
“I want to know how it happened,” said Mathilde.
Alaine disengaged herself from Michelle’s embrace. “It is a long, long story. Can you hear it now? There are many things I, too, would know.” She looked from one to the other, and saw on the faces of Mathilde and Gerard a conscious smile. Then she understood. “You are married, you two! That is why——” She looked around the room. These pretty femininities were Mathilde’s work. She remembered how Mathilde had excelled in the use of her brush and her needle. She ran up to her and shook her playfully. “Tell me, is it true?”
“It is true,” laughed Mathilde. “It happened two weeks ago last Sunday at the church in Manhatte. We were married there. Tell her, Gerard.” She turned with a pretty bashful look at her young husband, who regarded her small self with admiring eyes.
He in his turn said, “Let Papa Louis tell the story; he is the best orator.”
“It was last winter that we first began to think of it; I should say that it was then that Michelle and I did so, for no doubt but that it had been interfering with the peace of these young persons long before that,” Papa Louis began. “Michelle there fell sick of a rheumatic fever and we all were in despair. The neighbors were kind, so very kind, but kindest of all was our little Mathilde, who came and helped to nurse her night and day. She did more than that, for she looked after the house so deftly that our good Michelle herself said that she could have done no better, and that Mathilde’s dainty touch was something that she could never hope to attain. For myself, I did not contradict her; an invalid must not be contradicted, you know.” His cheery laugh warmed Alaine’s heart, it was so pleasantly familiar.