The ride to town seemed endless to the impatient boy. He was burning with a feverish anxiety to know about Robin, but the driver whom he questioned could not tell.
"Mrs. Estel will be down presently," was the message with which he was ushered into the long drawing-room. He sat down uncomfortably on the edge of a chair to wait. He almost dreaded to hear her coming for fear she might tell him that the Piersons would not give Robin up. Maybe her husband had not come home when she expected him. Maybe he had been too busy to attend to the matter. A dozen possible calamities presented themselves.
Unconsciously he held himself so rigid in his expectancy that he fairly ached. Ten minutes dragged by, with only the crackle of the fire on the hearth to disturb the silence of the great room.
Then light feet pattered down the stairs and ran across the broad hall. The portière was pushed aside and a bright little face looked in. In another instant Robin's arms were around his neck, and he was crying over and over in an ecstasy of delight, "Oh, it's Big Brother! It's Big Brother!"
Not far away down the avenue a great church organ was rolling out its accompaniment to a Thanksgiving anthem. Steven could not hear the words the choir chanted, but the deep music of the organ seemed to him to be but the echo of what was throbbing in his own heart.
There was no lack of childish voices and merry laughter in the great house that afternoon. A spirit of thanksgiving was in the very atmosphere. No one could see the overflowing happiness of the children without sharing it in some degree.
More than once during dinner Mrs. Estel looked across the table at her husband and smiled as she had not in months.
Along in the afternoon the winter sunshine tempted the children out of doors, and they commenced to build a snow man. They tugged away at the huge image, with red cheeks and sparkling eyes, so full of out-breaking fun that the passers-by stopped to smile at the sight.
Mrs. Estel stood at the library window watching them. Once, when Robin's fat little legs stumbled and sent him rolling over in the snow, she could not help laughing at the comical sight.
It was a low, gentle laugh, but Mr. Estel heard, and, laying aside his newspaper, joined her at the window. He had almost despaired of ever seeing a return to the old sunny charm of face and manner.