There it was--lifting its bright head through the tangle of undergrowth as though it knew that sunshine and happiness had come to the neglected home! And there were more, too, and Renée, hunting eagerly, found hundreds of tiny blades of bright green grass and beyond a rose vine climbing toward the old stone wall.
"Oh, it is going to be nice!" she cried to Emile. "We can have a garden like Susette's."
Emile, with the soul of an artist, was already mentally transforming the entire house and garden. It would be very pleasant to do nothing for awhile but work out among the growing things with Renée! Mrs. Forrester, eager to see again her "little flower," had roused Elsbeth very early in the morning that she might be in readiness. She had insisted upon putting on her old black silk dress; she had folded a soft net fichu around her neck and had fastened it with a lavender ribbon.
"Now don't stand and stare at me like that silly," she had rebuked the old servant. "Can't you understand that I'm not sick any more? Watch me!" and holding her head very high she walked slowly across the room out into the hall.
So it was in the living room they found her. God had given back to her so much that she was not even startled when Renée very simply told of Emile's coming. She could not speak a word as she reached up her arms to embrace the boy, for he looked so much like his mother that it brought a choking sob to her throat.
And if in Emile's heart there had lingered any hardness toward the grandmother it disappeared when he saw her! She looked so little and fragile, sitting in the big walnut chair, that it roused all the chivalry in the boy's soul. He kissed her tenderly on each wrinkled cheek.
Then Pat was introduced; Renée had to tell, too, of finding the daffodils. Elsbeth, her face twisted into a comical expression of bewilderment, listened in the doorway, and from all parts of the house there was a rumble of furniture and the tread of feet.
"In a very little time this place will all be changed," Mrs. Forrester said, patting Renée's hand. "We will have flowers growing all around us--and we will be very happy, we three!"
It was a very busy day! Emile must be admitted to the secrets of the Eyrie; he was shown the account book of LaDue and Everett and some of Renée's work. Then he had to hear the story of Paddy and the lost formulas, of Sheila and Peggy and Garrett and Hill-top, of Troop Six and the scout work, and of Keineth and the coming party! Surely never in the world did a tongue wag faster that Pat's nor did eyes shine more brightly than Renée's as Emile was made acquainted with all that had brought so much happiness into her life during the past winter.
Downstairs Aunt Pen, Capt. Allan and Daddy were talking, too. Pat with her remarkable instinct for sensing "when plans were in the making" exclaimed, as she entered the room: