"Please, please, dear Miss Vildy, don't take me to the Home, but find me some other place, and I'll never, never run away from it!"
"My blessed little boy, I've come to take you back to your own home at the White Farm."
It was too good to believe all at once. "Nobody wants me there," he said hesitatingly.
"Everybody wants you there," replied Miss Vilda, with a softer note in her voice than anybody had ever heard there before. "Samantha wants you, Gay wants you, and Jabe is waiting out here with Maria, for he wants you."
"But do you want me?" faltered the boy.
"I want you more than all of 'em put together, Timothy; I want you, and I need you most of all," cried Miss Vilda, with the tears coursing down her withered cheeks; "and if you'll only forgive me for hurtin' your feelin's and makin' you run away, you shall come to the White Farm and be my own boy as long as you live."
"Oh, Miss Vildy, darling Miss Vildy! are we both of us adopted, and are we truly going to live with you all the time and never have to go to the Home?" Whereupon, the boy flung his loving arms round Miss Vilda's neck in an ecstasy of gratitude; and in that sweet embrace of trust and confidence and joy, the stone was rolled away, once and forever, from the sepulchre of Miss Vilda's heart, and Easter morning broke there.