Presently he called to them:
"Come in, girls," and Dorothy felt she could hardly move—she was so anxious and expectant.
A woman, with a kind face, greeted them sadly, but with that unmistakable air of one whom poverty cannot drag down from self-respect.
"Yes, I have a child with me," she answered nervously, "but I cannot allow you to see her."
Then Squire Travers produced his credentials.
"You need not fear us," he told her kindly. "We have the best of news for little Nellie Burlock, and we are only too anxious to make her acquainted with it."
"But we have been disappointed so often," objected the woman, "and that man Anderson—"
"You need not think of him now," said Squire Travers. "We have just left him in the hands of the sheriff. This little girl," placing his hand on Dorothy, "has brought it all about. She showed the child's father how to die happily—made it possible for him to see the hope beyond, and then she and her good father have worked untiringly to find the child. Cannot we see her now?"
[Illustration: Instantly Dorothy had her arms around the little girl]
The woman took Dorothy's hands, and looked straight into her eyes. Then, without a word, she turned and opened a narrow door, that seemed to run under a stairway.