“At any rate, the dog would stay with her; I am glad she was not all alone.”
“Has anyone thought of the sea?” suggested a man; “we have searched so thoroughly and so long, and it was less than an hour before at least a dozen people were looking for her.”
No one spoke for a time. Everyone had thought of the sea and everyone had resolutely put the thought aside.
“It is too awfully cruel to think of,” and a young man, a mere boy, suddenly put his head against the porch pillar and sobbed. He was employed about the Douglas estate.
Judge Lorimer laid his arm about the lad’s shoulder and bent his splendid white head close to the rough brown one.
“I know just how you feel,” he assured him, “why we cannot have it. The little white blossom, always defending, sheltering, comforting someone.”
“She just made life over for me,” continued the lad; “you know I was about down and out when I went begging Mr. Timothy to give me a chance. I can see her now, nothing but a baby—made me think of a bit of thistle-down with the sun shining on it. ‘Boy,’ she said, ‘come and have some dinner, then you won’t feel so sorry’—I was fair starved I tell you. She took hold of my hand and led me to the house. ‘Bridgie, don’t forget to give him a big plate of pudding,’—and it’s been that way ever since.”
So they talked of little Dorothy. Each had some tender memory. “She belongs to the community; in her estimation everyone is good and kind; she never saw anything but the angel side; she has been a little Christmas messenger,” sorrowed an old man.
“What they are going to do at her own home, I can’t think.”
“Has anyone seen Mr. Douglas? He has grown old since yesterday; and Timothy—I could hardly bear the look in the man’s eyes.”