“I guess there’s no mistake this time, Mary,” he said, and there was infinite relief in his tone.
When they reached the cottage the children were playing in the sand as usual, and the girls drew back, leaving Miss Arbuckle and her brother to go on alone.
Miss Arbuckle had grown very white, and she reached out a hand to her brother for support. Then she leaned forward and called very softly: “Davy, Davy, dear.”
The children stopped playing and stared up at the visitors. But it was the little fellow who recognized them first.
“Mary! My Mary!” he cried in his baby voice, and ran as fast as his little legs could carry him straight into Miss Arbuckle’s arms. Then the little girls ran to her, and Miss Arbuckle dropped down in the sand and hugged them and kissed them and cried over them.
“Oh, my children! My darling, darling children!” she cried over and over again, while the man stood looking down at them with such a look of utter happiness on his face that the girls turned away.
“Come on,” whispered Billie, and they slipped past the two and into the house.
Connie’s mother and father were in the library, and when the girls told them what had happened they hurried out to greet the newcomers, leaving the chums alone.
“Well, now,” said Laura, sinking down on the couch and looking up at them, “what do you think of that?”
“I’m so dazed, I don’t know what to think of it,” said Billie, adding, with a funny little laugh: “The only thing we do know is that everybody’s happy.”