Adele, dressed in pretty white muslin and wearing her daisy-wreathed hat, tripped down the road toward the orphan asylum. She was so deep in thought that she did not notice some one standing on the corner and evidently waiting for her, until a pleasant voice called, “May I go with you, my pretty maid?”
“Oh, Gertrude Willis!” Adele exclaimed. “I was thinking of you that very moment and wishing that you were going with me, and here you are.”
These two friends were especially dear to each other. They walked on together, and Gertrude said, “Adele, I think it so nice of you to go every Sunday afternoon to tell stories to the little children at the Orphans’ Home. I have often wanted to go with you, but usually father has a young people’s meeting at the church and he likes me to be there, but to-day he himself suggested that I go with you.”
“I’m so glad!” Adele replied, giving her friend’s arm a loving squeeze. Then they talked of Eva Dearman, and decided that they would try to be like sisters to the little girl who had no home-people of her own in all the world.
“I just can’t imagine what that would be like,” Gertrude remarked, as she thought of the parsonage in which there were five merry children, watched over by a loving, if dignified, father, and the dearest mother in all the world.
Mrs. Friend, the matron of the Home, greeted them pleasantly, and led them to the large, barren room where, on little red chairs, twenty small children were seated.
Their round, eager eyes were watching the door, and when they saw Adele, their faces brightened, and it seemed as though sunshine had suddenly entered the rather gloomy room.
The children, ranging from five years to eight, arose, and, standing beside their chairs, made funny little bobbing curtsies, and they piped out, like so many chirping birds, “Good afternoon, Miss Adele.”
“Good afternoon, little sunbeams,” Adele replied. “I have brought a friend with me to-day. Miss Gertrude is her name.”
Then the tiny tots bobbed another curtsy, and with solemn faces they piped, “Good afternoon, Miss Gertrude.”