CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A HAPPY MEETING
Eva paused and looked up the broad stairway. At the top stood Mrs. Green, frantically beckoning to her.
“Eva,” the woman called in a stage whisper, “don’t go into the library. Come here, quick!”
The girl, puzzled indeed, was about to obey, when the portières parted and a tall, good-looking man appeared. He had been examining a painting near the doorway and had plainly heard the excited stage-whisper, the meaning of which he had easily interpreted.
Eva stepped back in surprise when she beheld the stranger, and, placing the vase of flowers on a near-by table, was about to hasten away, when the man stepped in front of her and held out both his hands. Eva, glancing at his face, saw in it an expression of love and tenderness such as she had not seen for many months. What could it mean? Then the stranger spoke. “Eva,” he said, “I am your Uncle Dick. Mrs. Friend wrote to me and—” But before he could say another word, the girl had thrown her arms about his neck, and was clinging to him as though she never meant to let him go again.
“Oh, Uncle Dick! Uncle Dick!” she sobbed. “Take me away from here! Please take me away! I’ve tried so hard to be brave, truly I have, but I’ve been so miserably lonesome without father or mother or any own folks to love me. How good it was of God to send you to me!”
There were tears also in the eyes of the strong man as he held the slender girl in a close embrace.
Meanwhile Mrs. Green, when she saw that the meeting was inevitable, had disappeared into her own room and locked the door. She did not care even to face her daughter just then. Soon she heard the front-door close, and, peering between the window-curtains, she saw the station-wagon roll away, and she was indeed glad that Mr. Dearman was taking Eva without further ado. The girl, she noted, was dressed as she had been when she came from the orphanage, and her own belongings were in the satchel which had been her father’s.
Adele, having galloped home at top speed, had told the wonderful news to her mother.
“Of course I am sorry to lose my new sister,” she ended, “but it never would have been the same as own folks for Eva. And, just think of it, mumsie, her very own uncle has come for her and is going to take her back west with him.”