“You’ll have to prove it to me. I don’t believe—”
“Sh!” Megsy cautioned. She was last in line, and turning, she saw that Miss Buell had started up the stairway and feared that she might overhear. They proceeded toward the southeast wing almost in silence and were indeed surprised to hear Miss Snoopins’ voice, close back of them, saying: “Miss Virginia, can you spare time to come to my room? I’d like your help for a few moments.”
“Indeed I can, Miss Buell. I have an hour of free time, and I shall be glad to give it to you.”
Excusing herself, the girl turned down a narrow hallway at the end of which was the small room occupied by the monitress of the rooms and corridors. The thin, angular woman was plainly excited. On her usually sallow face two red spots burned. She drew forward a stiff-backed chair.
“Oh, Miss Virginia,” she said, “I just had to tell someone—or—” She was plainly unable to complete the sentence, and so Virg said kindly:
“You have had good news, from some relative perhaps? I shall be glad to hear about it.” But she was interrupted with: “No, ’tisn’t a relative. Leastwise not by blood. I haven’t any of those.” Then eagerly: “There is a way, isn’t there, by going to law or something by which folks can be made into real relations, if they aren’t born so?”
“Why, yes, Miss Buell. Neighbors of ours on the desert adopted a boy and then he was their very own.”
The eyes, that the girls had called green, were like wells of happiness. “That’s what I wanted to know. Of course I could have asked Mrs. Martin, but she’d have discouraged me, like as not, saying I had all I could do to save up a bit for my old age.” Then, opening the envelope, she handed the wondering girl a kodak picture. “That’s little Terry!”
Tears sprang to the eyes of Virginia, “Oh, Miss Buell,” she said, “that poor little twisted body, but what a beautiful face he has! It makes me think of a painting I saw in the Boston cathedral when Miss Torrence took us up there for Christmas service. It’s just as though his little soul were singing songs of praise.”
Tears, all unheeded, fell down the sallow cheeks of the woman, who had been called unloved and unloving. “I believe he is! I sometimes think little Terry lives in a world the rest of us can’t see.”