“Well,” Adele said with a sigh, as she picked up her riding-hat, “if there is nothing that I can do about it, I might as well go over and see Amanda Brown. She is so lonely with Eva away.”
As Adele neared the orphanage, she saw the station-wagon stopping near the gate. “More orphans being brought to the Home, I suppose,” she thought, but instead, a man alighted and bade the driver wait. The stranger was about forty-five years of age, dressed in typical western style, and as he glanced at the girl, she saw that his weather-browned face was good-looking and kindly. Adele dismounted, and, tossing Firefly’s reins over a hitching-post, started up the gravelly walk, just back of the stranger. He turned and smiled pleasantly at her, as he asked, “Am I right in believing that this is the county orphanage?”
“Yes, it is,” Adele replied, walking beside him.
“Do you happen to know if this is where my niece, Eva Dearman, is staying?”
If the skies had opened and an angel had appeared to deliver Eva, Adele could not have been more surprised.
“Oh, sir!” she cried, scarcely able to believe what she had heard. “Are you really her uncle? Can it be true that poor Eva has an own relation?”
“Why do you call my niece ‘poor’?” the stranger asked with evident concern. “Is she ill or in trouble?”
Then Adele told the whole story. The face of Richard Dearman showed deep feeling as he listened, and then he said almost brokenly, “To think of my brother’s little girl enduring such humiliation!”
Then he strode to the orphanage door and inquired for Mrs. Friend. The matron was out and was not expected back for two hours.
The man then turned to Adele, as he asked, “Young lady, will you take me to the place where my niece is being treated like a servant?”