Adelaide's delight at finding that Mrs. Halsey was her lost mother, and Jim her brother, was genuine and intense. "I knew, all the time, that Jim was somebody's child," she exclaimed, incoherently. "It is all too good to be true! too good to be true!"
"Jim deserves a better father than he has found," said Mr. Armstrong, "and by God's grace he shall have a better.
"It is too bad to break up this nice little arrangement of a summer home for the poor children," he added, "and I will allow the cottage to be used for this purpose just so long as the tennis club desire to maintain it; but I must have my wife. Please remember that we have been parted from each other a very long time. I am going West next week, and I must take her with me; and it will not do Adelaide any harm to have a glimpse of the great West before we send her to school in the fall. Jim has had as much of the West as he can stand at present, and we will leave him in the best school that we can find."
"But what shall we do for a housekeeper for the cottage?" Adelaide asked, in dismay.
"Mrs. Trimble has just left the hospital, fully recovered, but I have no doubt she would prefer to run your little enterprise rather than to return to the store; and as I have deprived you of your housekeeper I don't mind paying Mrs. Trimble to supply her place for the remainder of the summer. It will do Mr. Trimble good, too, to complete his convalescence here, and perhaps in the winter they will accept the janitorship of your tenement."
"My tenement!" Adelaide replied, in surprise.
"Yes, I intend to give you the management of this property, which I have always considered your own. You have a matter of twenty thousand dollars insurance money, which, with the ten thousand which I have deposited to your name in the savings bank, you may use in erecting a model tenement on the site of the old Rickett's Court building. I think I shall have some more money for you to put into the enterprise if the patent works well. I shall give Mr. Trimble a share in the profits of that invention over and above the five thousand dollars already paid him, but I think that he would like one of your suites of rooms in return for acting as janitor and agent of the building, and it will not interfere with his teaching mechanics to the boys at the Home."
"If you please, papa," said Adelaide, "I like the plan of engaging Mr. Trimble as janitor, but I would rather be my own agent and collect the rents myself; then I can see just what improvements are needed, and be sure that my tenants are all comfortable."
For the remainder of their stay in the East the Armstrongs busied themselves with architects' plans and specifications. Adelaide enjoyed planning the bathrooms and conveniences of different kinds. "And the paving-stones must be taken up in the court," she said, "and a nice grass-plot laid out in their place, and we will have pretty iron balconies before every window, and a fire-escape."
"Yes, daughter," replied her father, "I will make you a present of that, outside the other matters—the very best kind of fire-escape to be found in the city; and, while we are about it, I will send one to the Home of the Elder Brother."