"Oh, Mrs. Bobs," cried Jack, possessing herself of Carter's hand, "you don't know how nice and jolly and kind Carter is. Won't you let him come live with you when we are gone? He'll be so awfully lonely away from his mother and all of us." Jack was really concerned for the welfare of this comrade of hers.
Mrs. Roberts's kind eyes rested compassionately upon the lad. "Would you really like to come to us?" she said.
"Would you take in a 'no-count' boarder like myself?" he asked, eagerly. "I'll take you out in my car, if you like, and when Mr. Roberts must be away I'll play protector, and I'll even go down town and match worsteds for you. Now that you have a niece, don't you want a nephew?"
"What do you say, Ben?" said Mrs. Roberts, turning to her husband.
"It's just as you say, my dear. For my own part I should like nothing better than young life about the house."
"Then, Carter, your Aunt Jennie will take you in and mother you to the best of her ability," Mrs. Roberts told the boy.
For answer Carter bent and kissed her hand with an old-fashioned gallantry. There were actual tears in his eyes when he lifted his head and it seemed that he could not speak his thanks except to say: "You don't know what that means to me." Then he walked away to the window and no one followed.
Miss Helen drew her chair closer to Mrs. Roberts. "My dear," she said, "you've done a real deed of charity for which his mother will bless you. That is a real mother boy, and no one knows better than I how he misses his home. I don't believe you will ever regret befriending him." And Mrs. Roberts never did.
In another day the trunks were all packed, the boxes to be sent home direct had been started on their way, and California would soon be a place only of remembrance to the Corners. Falling in with Mr. Pinckney's plans they had decided to return east by Yellowstone Park and the Great Lakes rather than to take a route carrying them further north. "Let the young folks see the Yellowstone and Niagara," said Mr. Pinckney; "they will be worth more to them than any other places we could strike on our way back, for then they will have seen two of the greatest wonders of their own country and will be ready for Europe when you want to take them. Now that we have in the family such a linguist as my granddaughter, I shall feel like crossing the ocean again myself. I've never been to Spain and some day she shall go there with me."
It was good to see the dear man's happiness. It was my granddaughter this and my granddaughter that, all the time. As for Miss Dolores herself, the worried lines were leaving her face and a sunny expression was coming in place of the sad, pained look she often wore. The future held home, love, protection, and freedom from galling poverty, a doting grandfather to lavish gifts upon her and to turn to in difficulties. What more could she ask? On her part she was all woman, and had begun already to exercise a pretty solicitude for him which pleased him mightily and which promised well for the days when he should need a ministering hand.