“Yes, my boy, Alice shall have everything she wants and so shall you.”
Alice put her chubby hands together softly, in almost unbelieving joy, and Ben said radiantly: “What I want most of all is that mother of mine need not work hard any more.”
A look of great sorrow passed over Mrs. Danforth’s face, and Mrs. Holt whispered to Ben: “Hush, my darling.”
The front door-bell ringing, told of the arrival of other guests. “We must call Elsa in for a moment,” said Mrs. Danforth, rising. Her eyes were soft now, with that look of tears in them. Stepping to the library door, she said gently, “Elsa!” And Elsa, who had been waiting in the reception-room across the hall, came into the library just as Ruth Warren and Betty and a quiet little woman—whom Cummings instantly recognized—entered the hall door and were asked by Cummings to go up-stairs and leave their wraps.
Elsa was dressed in a dainty white silk gown with a full, many-ruffled skirt. She looked very pale as she stepped into the library and stood, a lone, sensitive-faced child, opposite the happy group of grandmother, mother, and two children.
It was Elsa, strangely enough, who spoke first. Turning to Alice, she said slowly: “You—you and Ben have a grandmother now and I haven’t any. Shall I have to go away,” she asked, lifting her pathetic eyes to Mrs. Danforth’s face, “and be a poor little girl?” She had just begun to think of this question.
“You need never go away unless you wish to, Elsa,” Mrs. Danforth said quickly. “And you will not be a poor little girl, for, as your Uncle Ned and I have agreed that I should tell you to-day, you are a very rich little girl, with a great deal of money that is all your own.”
“O, how glad I am!” cried Elsa, some of the sorrowful look dying out of her eyes; “for now I can do everything I want to, to help the Convalescent children.”
There was something so touching and so winning in the little orphan girl, standing there with her face full of unselfish joy at the thought of what she could do for others less fortunate than herself, that Mrs. Danforth suddenly humbled herself before this little child.
“Elsa,” she said, stepping forward, “I have not been as kind and loving to you as I might have been. But the love which springs up in my heart for my own grandchildren makes me realize how much I also love the little girl who has brightened my home and been so brave and obedient.” She held out her arms. Elsa came forward gladly, and Mrs. Danforth kissed her with warm affection,—apparently quite forgetting that she had ever thought this a foolish custom. And Elsa felt that she loved her grandmother-that-was a great deal more dearly now that she wasn’t really her grandmother. Then Alice put her soft arms around Elsa’s neck, and Mrs. Holt said kindly: “I shall have to call you my little niece, Elsa.”