"We will go to her, like children to a grandmother, etc. The others have no delicacy of sentiment, etc. And she will thus learn who really remember, really love her, etc."
Provided with congratulatory bouquets, they set forth. It is very hard to find a dweller on the very sea-bottom of poverty. Perhaps that is why the effort is so seldom made. One has to ask at grocers' shops, groggeries, market-stalls, Chinese restaurants; interview corner cobblers, ragpickers, gutter children. But nothing is impossible to the determined. The two ladies overcame all obstacles, and needled their way along, where under other circumstances they would not have glanced, would have thought it improper to glance.
They were directed through an old, old house, out on an old, old gallery, to a room at the very extreme end.
"Poor thing! Evidently she has not heard the good news yet. We will be the first to communicate it," they whispered, standing before the dilapidated, withered-looking door.
Before knocking, they listened, as it is the very wisdom of discretion to do. There was life inside, a little kind of voice, like some one trying to hum a song with a very cracked old throat.
The ladies opened the door. "Ah, my friend!"
"Ah, my friend!"
"Restored!"
"Restored!"