Good byes were said and the Overland Riders retraced their trail, the last journey that, as a body, they probably ever would take. A week later found them at their homes. Each had his own life to lead now, for the years were drawing on, and the Overlanders were no longer children.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE HOUSE OF HAPPINESS
Haven Home was brilliantly lighted, for it was Christmas eve, and Grace had made good her promise to ask the Overland Riders to spend the holiday week with her and Tom.
Haven Home was a house of happiness on that wonderful Christmas eve, for, up in the nursery, lay a little pink and white bundle of humanity over which the Overlanders bent—that is, the girls did—and worshiped at the shrine of Grace Harlowe’s own little daughter, now less than four weeks old. For that bit of humanity the whole party had come laden with gifts, not forgetting many beautiful things for Yvonne, Grace’s adopted daughter—the child that Grace had rescued from the cellar of a deserted village amid the crashing of exploding German shells in the great world war—now a beautiful young woman.
Hamilton White was there, big, brown and manly, a figure that attracted attention where-ever he went; Jim Haley was there, too, with a load of peanuts that required a wagon to carry them from the express office.
Elfreda had brought her adopted daughter, now home from a finishing school, and a different child she was from the daughter of the Mad Hermit that the Overlanders had taken to their hearts some years before.
But where was Stacy Brown? No one could answer the question. Stacy had not even replied to the invitation to join the Christmas party, and there was disappointment, for no reunion of the Overlanders could be complete without the fat boy.
Emma Dean was monopolizing “Hamilton” most of the time, and Nora confided to Grace that she actually believed it was going to be a “match,” but Grace shook her head and smiled.
And then Stacy arrived!
The fat boy made his usual dramatic entrance at a moment when he knew attention would be centered on him. It was.