“It is very foggy, and the air is cold. We do not want a little sick girl on our hands. Pull them close about you. Oh, your cape is very light—you must take my furs. It is much warmer in front, and I do not need them. Now, are you all ready? This is my little pal Angelo Moreno with me, but don’t pay any attention to him to-night. You will see him again. Now, all ready and off we go.”
Angelo sat silently musing in his corner during the long ride back to town, and Eveley sang softly almost beneath her breath. In the back seat there was silence, too. Only once Eveley turned to call to them blithely:
“I was frightened and anxious at first, but now I feel happy and full of hope. I think you are going to bring me great good fortune, Sister Marie.”
“You are—most heavenly kind,” said Marie, in slow soft English, with the exquisite toning of her Spanish tongue.
“Oh, Marie,” cried Eveley rapturously. “Those are the first words I ever heard you say—such kind and loving words. I shall never forget them.”
The rest of the ride was taken in absolute silence, and at the door of her cottage when she ran the car into the garage, Angelo carried Marie’s bag up the steps silently, and Hiltze helped her, while Eveley ran hospitably in front to have the window open and the lights on. She thrust out an eager hand to help Marie through the window, and then she gaily faced their escorts.
“Not to-night,” she cried. “You can not come in even for a minute. Sister Marie and I are going to have hot chocolate all by ourselves, and—and find out how we like each other’s looks. Many thanks—good night.”
Then she closed the window and turned to the slender shrinking figure at her side, drawing back the heavy hood that shielded the girl’s face to look into the features of the little foreign waif she had taken to her heart.