Ethel Blue was the heroine of the day and not even her father was prouder of her than Ethel Brown, who patted her and praised her without stint.
So great was the disturbance created at home by Dicky's experience which necessitated the calling of a doctor to make sure that he and Ethel Blue were getting on safely, and so frequent were the runnings up and down stairs with hot water and hot cloths and hot drinks and dry clothes that it was nightfall before Mrs. Morton had a chance to ask her brother-in-law how it happened that he had a furlough just at that time. Ethel Blue had begged not to be sent to bed and she was lying in the hammock, wrapped in a blanket and holding her father's hand as if she were trying to keep him always beside her. The rest of the family had gone to bed or to the Amphitheatre.
"Is my namesake asleep?" inquired Captain Morton. "Then sit down and let me tell you why I am here. I asked for leave because something had happened that made me think that we might perhaps be able to find Sister Louise again."
"Oh, Richard! After all these years! Have you really a clue?"
"It seems to me a very good one. I was doing some inspection work at the time General Funston cleaned up Vera Cruz. It necessitated my going into a great many of the Mexican houses. In one of them—a rather small house in a shabby street—I saw on the wall looking down on me a picture of my sister."
"Of Louise! How could it have come there?"
"I was amazed. I stared at the thing with my mouth open. But I could not be mistaken; it was a photograph of her that I was familiar with, taken before she was married."
"Could you make the proprietor of the house understand that you knew her?"
"Oh, yes; I've picked up enough Spanish to get on pretty well now. The man said that the original of the picture, Doña Louisa, had boarded with them several years ago. It took a lot of calculation to remember how long ago, but he finally concluded that it was the year before his third son broke his leg, and that was in 1907, as far as I could make out."
"Eight years ago that she was there. How extraordinary! What became of her?"