“I’m so happy, so happy!” she said to herself. “I wish I might share it with some one who hasn’t as much as I have.”
And just as she turned in at the lilac gate, she thought of the some one. Into the house she skipped, and, pausing in the lower hall, she called eagerly, “Mumsie mine, where are you?”
“Climb the golden stairs, daughter,” a sweet voice replied. And up the softly-carpeted stairway Adele tripped, and, dancing into her mother’s sunny sewing-room, she threw her arms about the pretty little woman who was busily making buttonholes. Then, sinking down on a near-by stool, she exclaimed, “Adorable Mother, have I been a real good girl this year?”
“Indeed you have,” Mrs. Doring replied brightly. And then she laughingly added, “That reminds me of when you were a little girl, Pet, for you always asked that when you were about to request a favor.”
“Did I?” Adele inquired with twinkling eyes, as she took off her broad-brimmed, daisy-wreathed hat and fanned her flushed face. Then, laying her head against her mother’s knee, she added, “Mumsie, darling, I haven’t changed very much, I guess, for I want to ask a great, big, and perfectly beautiful favor of you. And since I have been so good, don’t you think that you might say yes?”
“Oho, Mistress Adele,” laughed her mother, “I cannot grant a favor unless I know what it is.”
“It’s something just ever so nice,” Adele said, “and it won’t be a mite of trouble to you. I want to invite that orphan girl, Eva Dearman, over to spend Saturday and Sunday. She’s just a dear, mumsie, and her home was as nice as ours before her father lost his money and died, and then, soon after that, her mother was taken. Oh, mumsie, when I think how it might have been me, homeless and all alone, I’m so thankful, and yet that makes me all the sorrier for Eva, and I would so like to share my home with her just for two days.”
There were tears in Mrs. Doring’s eyes as she held Adele close. Then she said: “Do go and get Eva this very moment. I would like to meet your friend.”
“Oh, Adorable Mother!” Adele exclaimed as she sprang up. “I fly to do your bidding. I’m sure that Mrs. Friend will be willing to let her come, and won’t Eva be happy, though!”
Adele tossed her school-books into her room as she hurried past, and then down the stairs she flew. Out to the barn she skipped, and soon Firefly was hitched to the little red cart. Adele waved to her mother as she drove out of the lilac gate. She was so happy that, as soon as the village was passed, she just had to sing.