“Chloe!” Mimi burst out. “Daddy did it! He has found out who you are! He found the kidnaper!”
“Who—am—I?”
Chloe’s dark eyes burned with questions. Her face went white with fear, then flushed red with hope. A Mother? A Daddy like the other girls!
“Your mother and father are dead, and as far as we know you have no brothers or sisters; but Daddy says you are from a fine old family!—And girls! My very own Mother Dear and Junior are coming home! They’ll dock June fifth.”
Strange, how even grown people stood back and let Mimi do all the talking. But she put her whole heart and soul into every word she spoke and that made people like to hear her.
“My—parents—dead! Then I’ve waited too long to find them? Oh, Mimi—oh, Aunt Marcia——!”
“You still have me, dear!”
Aunt Marcia crushed the forlorn little girl in her arms—this beautiful girl who this morning in her ill-fitting clothes looked much more like a neglected little orphan than that day when Aunt Marcia had taken her from the Home. Aunt Marcia’s white kid gloves, the white gardenias, her white purse, none of the fresh white accessories which set off her navy ensemble, mattered. She held Chloe tightly. She would never let her go. Next year she would not even let her go away to school. They would be great chums. She had never realized before that this beautiful girl was as love starved and lonely as she herself. She would make up to her for all the happy family life each had missed.
Every one in the room felt what Aunt Marcia was thinking. Betsy and Sue had their eyes fixed on their toes.
Dr. Barnes lifted his gentle eyes as if he were praying. A tear rolled from beneath his glasses and he made no move to wipe it away. Mimi had no words left. She felt the way she did at church during Communion service, small and helpless as a mere speck of a speck and yet large as the great universal spirit of love. Such moments caught and held her. From them, each time, the magic trail of beauty unfolded anew and led into a happier world.