"And is he really—really—really your son?" cried Betty, unable to contain herself longer, pressing the old lady into a chair and kneeling down before her eagerly. "Oh, we knew you'd come and tell us! We've been so very happy for you."
"Yes, he's my Willie boy," answered the little old lady, speaking dreamily as though even yet she was not able to grasp the wonderful thing that had happened to her. "It's strange when I come to think of it how I knew him right away because, you see, I've always sort o' thought of him as my little son, my baby, and in my mind I've always seen him as he was that day he ran away. But he's really just the same—my little Willie boy—only taller and sort o' broader in the shoulders an' handsomer—" her voice broke and Betty slipped a sympathetic little hand in hers while the girls gathered closer.
"You see, I've been prayin' for this thing for a good many years," she went on quaintly, "an' it looks like Providence sort o' saw fit to answer me at last. An' He jest picked out the sweetes' little ladies He could find to be His instruments."
The girls laughed unsteadily and Betty's young hand tightened on the old one.
"We feel as if it all must be a fairy story," she said softly.
"That's jest what it is—a fairy story," cried the little old lady, turning those wonder-filled eyes upon them.
"It must have seemed sort o' strange to you about the name," she added, after a short pause.
Betty saw that Grace was about to interrupt, but a warning glance stopped her.
"You see, his real name is William Mullins Sanderson. But when he ran away he dropped the Sanderson so's they couldn't arrest him for somethin' he didn't do— poor little lad." Her voice was very soft and her eyes tender. "He would have come back to me, only he heard that I was dead and thought 'twasn't any use. He said he'd jest been eatin' his heart out, thinkin' of old days an' how he'd promised to make a fortune for us both an' buy a big house where I wouldn't ever have to work again 'less I wanted to. An' now he says," she straightened up and her eyes flashed with pride in him, "he says, soon's the war is over he's goin' to make that old dream come true.
"He'd been studyin' to be a lawyer, an' had jest passed his 'bar exams'—so he called 'em—when the war broke out, an' he jes' couldn't resist the call o' the bugle. O' course he couldn't!" Once more was heard that thrill of pride. "Wasn't he my Willie boy, who had the blood of fightin' ancestors in his veins as well as brains an' a love o' book larnin' from his pa?