"Wiggins says to tell you, sir, that he will write to you to-morrow, but if you'll excuse me, sir, for meddling in what is none of my business, I'd like you to know before then what a little heaven on earth you have made in that tenement-house. Wiggins was so weak he could hardly sit up, and he cried for pure joy, at the thought of getting away. He says he knows it will save his life. He kept wringing my hand, over and over, and saying, 'It isn't just the money and all that it will do for me in the way of unloading me of that debt and getting my strength back, but it's the kindness of it, Miller, the heavenly kindness of it! Doing all this for me as if he had been my brother!'"
"Thank you, Miller," said Mr. Forbes, waving him hastily aside and turning again to his letters. He seemed impatient, but there was a glow in his heart that made the world seem pleasanter all day.
On his way home he stopped at a jeweller's, and selected a little ring. It was only a simple twist of gold tied in a lover's knot, but inside he had them engrave the word, "Tusitala," and ordered it sent to the hotel that evening.
Late that night it was brought up to his room, where he sat writing a letter to Eugenia. He had just finished the paragraph: "I am sending you by this mail a sort of talisman. Maybe the daily sight of it on your finger will be a helpful reminder of that noble life that shall never be forgotten, while the Road of the Loving Heart endures. It is so easy to forget to take time to be kind. I find it so in my daily rush of business. I shall carry your letter with me as a reminder. Tell your little friend Betty so. The ripple she started will circle farther than she ever dreamed."
"How queer for me to be saying anything like that to Eugenia," he thought. "How much she must have changed to be able to write me the letter she did." He opened the box and took out the little ring. As he turned it around on the tip of his finger, he remembered that it was almost time for her to be coming home. The house party would soon be at an end.
"Hardly worth while to send it to her," he thought. "She will be coming home so soon. When we are down at the seashore, I will give it to her."
The letter she had written him lay open on the table before him. That letter, blotted with penitent tears, had brought a new tenderness into his heart for her. It had revealed a different Eugenia from the one he had been accustomed to thinking of as his little daughter. Somehow she seemed nearer and dearer than she had ever done before, and he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her so. The next instant the thought flashed across his mind, "Well, why not? This is the time I have arranged to take my vacation, and there is nothing to hinder my going down to Kentucky after her. Jack Sherman is always urging me to visit Locust, and I'll give the child a surprise. She dislikes to travel with only Eliot."
Eugenia knew nothing of the telegram her Cousin Elizabeth received next morning, so several days later she could hardly believe her eyes, when she saw her father spring out of the carriage in front of the house, and come bounding up the steps, between the white pillars of the vine-covered porch. Tall, handsome, smiling, he came toward her, his arms outstretched, and, after one amazed glance, she ran into them, crying, "Oh, papa! papa! I'm so glad!"
"I couldn't do without my little girl any longer," he said. "I had to come for her."
Mrs. Sherman came out just then with the warmest of welcomes, and Eugenia rushed up-stairs for a moment, to tell Betty about her surprise and to hurry Joyce and Lloyd down to greet her father.