“Am I awake?” he continued, “or is this all an opium dream? First Katherine, whom we thought at home at Carver House, materializes before us out of thin air; then Dr. Phillips, whom we thought on a ship bound for South America. What’s happening here to-night, anyway? Is it witchcraft?”
“O, Marse Tad,” quavered Hercules, still on his knees, “we shore thought you was gone on dat South Ameriky boat. We bin a-lookin’ for you so. Mist’ Sher’dan an’ I bin down to N’Yawk all day.”
“You have been looking for me?” asked Dr. Phillips in surprise.
Hercules, trying to tell the story all at once, became utterly incoherent in his excitement, and Sherry saw that he would have to step in. And so there, in the light from the lamps of the disabled taxicab, with the fitful explosions of the reviving engine drowning out Sherry’s speech every few minutes, Tad Phillips heard the great news that would lift the crushing load of anguish from his heart, and would turn the world once more into a place of laughter, and light, and happiness.
“It was a miracle, my deciding to stay over for the next boat,” he declared solemnly, a few minutes later, after nearly wringing Sherry’s hand off in an effort to express his joy and gratitude. “It was the hand of Providence, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence. I had fully made up my mind to go on that boat yesterday; then for no reason at all I suddenly decided to wait until next week before sailing.” His voice sank away into a whisper of awe as he repeated, “It was Providence itself, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence, that made me change my mind about sailing yesterday.”
“You may have been inspired by Providence to change your mind about sailing,” rejoined Sherry, “but if it hadn’t been for Katherine, here, we never would have found you, for it never occurred to us that you were still in Philadelphia. It’s all Katherine’s doing—her losing that handbag.”
“But if I hadn’t eaten those lobster croquettes and gotten sick I wouldn’t have lost the handbag,” said Katherine comically. “It all comes back to the lobster croquettes. Providence and lobster croquettes! What a combination to work miracles!”
It was a rather dishevelled, but altogether triumphant quartet that arrived at Carver House some few hours later. Katherine’s hair had escaped from its net and hung in straggling wisps over her eyes; her hat had been so completely crushed by its contact with the wheel of the taxi that it was unrecognizable as an article of millinery, and hung, a mere twisted piece of wreckage, in a dejected lump over one ear. Her coat was plastered with dirt from neck to hem, and her gloves were stiff and discolored. One eye was closed in a permanent wink by a black smudge that decorated her forehead and half of her cheek.
Blissfully unconscious of her startling appearance, she burst into the library, where the household were waiting to welcome the returned wanderers.
“O Katherine,” cried all the Winnebagos in chorus when they beheld her, “now you look natural again!”