Lloyd was in tears by this time, and reaching across the table for the letter she had written about the Barley-bright witch, she began tearing it into pieces.
"Oh, if I'd only known," she said, "I never would have written those things about her. I'll write another one this afternoon, and tell Joyce all about her. Is she still crying in there, Betty?"
"No, she stopped before I left. I told her we would all try to find her little sister, and that I was sure godmother could do it, even if everybody else failed. But she didn't seem to think that there was much hope."
"Did you tell her about Fairchance?" asked Lloyd, "or Joyce's finding Jules's great-aunt Desiré, that time she went to the Little Sisters of the Poor?"
"No," said Betty.
"Then let me tell her," cried the Little Colonel, starting up eagerly.
She ran on into Molly's room, while thoughtful Betty slipped down-stairs to offer her services in Molly's place, that she might listen undisturbed to Lloyd's tale of comfort,—all about Jonesy and his brother, and the bear, who had found a fair chance to begin life again, in the home that the two little knights built for them, in their efforts to "right the wrong and follow the king." All about old great-aunt Desiré, who had been found in a pauper's home and brought back to her own again, through the Gate of the Giant Scissors, on Christmas Day in the morning.
"It is too good to be true," sighed Molly, when Lloyd had finished. "It might happen to some people, but it's too good to happen to me. It sounds like something out of a story-book."
"Most of the things in story-books had to happen first before they were written about," answered the Little Colonel. "You've got so many friends now that surely some of them will be able to do something to find her."
Presently Molly looked up, saying, in a hesitating way, "Several people have been good to me before, but I never thought about them doing it because they were my friends. I thought they treated me kindly just because they pitied me, and that made me cross."