“Why didn’t I tell Alma?” sighed Nora, regretfully. “She might have known a better way to have helped her.”
Too late to reason thus, Nora with a heavy heart again covered the tin box, hoping something would bring Lucia back; then she took the quaint floral token and started for the Nest.
Her plans to help Lucia had included everything from a change of home to a complete change of identity, for Nora felt the stranger must have been in sore need, and why couldn’t she induce Cousin Ted to adopt such a pretty, forlorn child?
It was characteristic of Nora to decide on the most dramatic course, for such a possibility as a mother, father, or family in the background of Lucia’s life was not thought of.
And was this to be the end of her precious secret? She squeezed the paper bouquet until the humble ribbon wrinkled into a sad bit of stuff, and then decided to put the token away with her most precious belongings. Maybe Lucia would come back, and if she ever did Nora decided positively she would then tell someone about the child, even tell Cousin Ted if need be, and, certainly, Alma.
“And now I must go to my letter box,” she told Cap, the faithful.
Looking up and down, in and out, far and near, to make sure no one saw her, Nora followed the trail to the bent willow—the hiding place of Alma’s correspondence with the fabled prince.
She had been there, the moss was a shade lighter where feet had pressed the velvet nap, and the leaves of the bushes were still “inside out” from a hasty brushing made to clear a path to the bent willow.
Under the stone, as directed, Alma had placed her answer to the prince’s letter, and finding it there she quickly hid the envelope in her deepest blouse pocket. She would read it in more comfort, enjoy it more at home, with the door locked.
“What an exciting vacation I am having, really!” she reflected. “When I came all I could think of was pretty things.”