Now, as has been stated, in his heart the honest plumber was fully as eager to see Dorothy C., as his wife was, and long before she had finished speaking he was on his way to number 77. It was such a lovely evening that all his neighbors were sitting out upon their doorsteps, in true Baltimore fashion, so it was easy as delightful to spread the tidings; and never, never, had the one-hundred-block of cleanly Brown Street risen in such an uproar. An uproar of joy that was almost hilarious; and all uninvited, everybody who had ever known Dorothy C. set off for Bellevieu, so that even before the Bruce-Jones party had arrived the lovely grounds were full to overflowing and the aristocratic silence of the place was broken by cries of:
"Dorothy! Dorothy Chester! Show us little Dorothy, and we'll believe our ears. Seeing is believing—Show us little Dorothy!"
These, and similar, outcries bombarded the hearing of Mrs. Cecil and, for a moment, frightened her. Glancing out of the window she beheld the throng and called to Ephraim:
"Boy! Telephone—the police! It's a riot of some sort! We're being mobbed!"
But Dinah knew better. She didn't yet understand why her mistress should bother with a couple of runaway young folks, but since she had done so it was her own part to share in that bother. So she promptly lifted the girl in her strong arms and carried her out to the broad piazza, so crowded with people in Sunday attire, and quietly explained to whomsoever would listen:
"Heah she is! Yas'm. Dis yere's de pos'man's li'l gal what's gone away wid de misery in his laigs. Yas'm. It sho'ly am. An' my Miss Betty, she's done foun' out how where he's gone at is right erjinin' ouah own prop'ty o' Deerhurst-on-de-Heights, where we-all's gwine in a right smart li'l while. Won't nottin' more bad happen dis li'l one, now my Miss Betty done got de care ob her. Yas'm, ladies an' gemplemen; an' so, bein's it Sunday, an' my folks mos' tuckered out, if you-all'd be so perlite as to go back to yo' housen an' done leab us res', we-all done be much obleeged. Yas'm. Good-bye."
Dinah's good-natured speech, added to the one glimpse of the rescued child, acted more powerfully than the police whom her mistress would have summoned; and soon the crowd drifted away, pausing only here and there to admire the beautiful grounds which, hitherto, most of these visitors had seen only from outside the gates.
But the Bruce family remained; and oh! the pride and importance which attached to them, thus distinguished! Or of that glad reunion with these old friends and neighbors, when Dorothy was once more in their arms, who could fitly tell? Then while Mabel and her restored playmate chattered of all that had happened to either since their parting, Mrs. Cecil drew the plumber aside and consulted him upon the very prosaic matter of clothes—clothes for now ill-clad Jim Barlow.
"I've decided to take him with us to New York State when we go, in a very few days. I shall employ him as a gardener on my property there, but he isn't fit to travel—as he's fixed now. Will you, at regular wages for your time, take him down town to-morrow morning and fit him out with suitable clothing, plain and serviceable but ample in quantity, and bring the bill to me? I'd rather you'd not let him out of your sight, for now that Dorothy is safe, the boy has ridiculous notions about his 'duty' to that dreadful old truck-farming woman who has let him work for her during several years at—nothing a year! And anybody who's so saturated with 'duty,' is just the man I want at Deerhurst, be he old or young."
To which the plumber answered: