Debby went down to the gate to meet her guests. She took Hester in her arms. In an instant her intuition told her that something was wrong.
"What is troubling my little girl?" she asked.
"Nothing, Aunt Debby. Nothing at all. Oh, how sweet to be back home!" She threw her arms about Debby Alden's neck and hugged her with a vehemence which caused that lady to gasp for breath.
Helen and Miss Alden had never met. Debby at once noticed the resemblance between Helen and Hester. She greeted the former as she had done her own little girl. Then she turned to Robert Vail and holding out her hand, said merrily, "I shall forgive and believe now, since I know you have a cousin Helen and she does resemble Hester. Until this time, I thought it all a myth of your own making, manufactured for the sole purpose of annoying two plain country folk."
Rob Vail laughed as he took her hand in his own firm clasp. "I do not know whether I shall allow myself to be forgiven under such circumstances. You would not have faith in me until I presented the proof and that is really no faith at all. I wish to be trusted without evidence."
He laughed again and held Miss Debby's hand tight in his own while they moved up the walk toward the tiny cottage.
"From this time, I shall have faith in you, though evidence is lacking," she said.
She liked the boy. She had never before been so pleasantly impressed by a young man as she had been by him. He was wholesome, clear-eyed and unaffected.
Debby Alden recognized these virtues in him and received him at once into her home and friendship. She liked his college talk; his bright way of making his smile and voice put his words at fault. Yet, while he entertained her she was not wholly unconscious of two things—that Hester was not herself, and that the resemblance between the two girls was not the result of mere chance. Suddenly she turned to Helen with the question: