"Oh, but Miss Cordelia, don't, please don't—I beg of you! Don't you understand? I am John Sanborn, Hermit Joe's son; and 'twas all through you that I came home again."
Cordelia only sobbed the harder.
Genevieve dropped on her knees at the girl's side, and put her arms about her.
"Cordelia, Cordelia, dear—don't you see?—it's all come out right. You did find him, after all! Why are you crying so?"
"T-that's why," stuttered Cordelia, smiling through tear-wet eyes. "It's because I d-did find him, and I'm so glad, and everything!"
"But, if you're glad, why cry?" began Hermit Joe's son, in puzzled wonder, but Genevieve patted Cordelia's back, and smiled cheerily.
"That's all right, Cordelia," she declared. "I know just how you feel. Now you know what was the matter with me when you girls gave me the Texas yell at the station. Just cry all you like!"
As if permission, only, were all she wanted, Cordelia wiped her eyes and smiled shyly into Mr. Jonathan Edwards Sanborn's face.
"It is really you, isn't it?" she murmured.
"It certainly is, Miss Cordelia."