Mrs. Doring was at the front gate to greet Eva, and she repeated the invitation which Adele had already given.
“Thank you, Mrs. Doring,” Mr. Dearman replied. “My suit-case is at the hotel, and so I will remain there to-night, but I will gladly leave Eva with you until morning.”
What a happy visit the two girls had that evening, as they sat in the pretty wild-rose room! “Adele,” Eva exclaimed, as she put her arm about her friend, “I’m almost glad now that I was sent to the orphanage, for if I hadn’t been I would never have known you, and I do love you just as much as I could if you were my very own sister, I do believe.”
“And we’ll never, never lose each other, will we?” Adele replied.
“Of course not!” Eva exclaimed. “How could we? We’ll write letters often, and next summer you are to come to visit me. Your mother told Uncle Dick that she thought that you might, if some friend happened to be traveling west at that time.”
“Good!” Adele cried. “How I’d love to play cow-girl and dress in khaki, with a red handkerchief about my neck! Oh, Eva, won’t it be glorious to gallop across the desert trails?”
“It will be glorious to have you with me,” Eva replied, “but since I have never ridden horseback, I am not sure how much I shall enjoy that.”
“You’ll love it, I know,” Eva exclaimed. Then a tender light appeared in her eyes as she said, “Oh, Adele, just to think that I am going to have a real home with an own relative in it; and the best, the very best, of it is that Uncle Dick looks just as father did when he was younger. Why, Adele, I’m so happy, so happy, that it seems as though those dreadful days at Mrs. Green’s must have been just a dream.” Then, taking Adele’s hand, she added, “There is one request which I have to make, and that is, please be kind to poor Amanda.”
“I promise,” Adele replied. Then for a time the two girls, hand in hand, sat quietly in the gathering twilight, and then Eva said softly, “I’m thinking of my mother and of how happy she must be if she knows that at last her little girl is to have a real home and some one to love her.”