But the lady would not let Bessie Bell get far from her, and Bessie did not care to go far from her. She stood with her little pink hands folded, and looked up at the lady who held to her so closely.
Sister Helen Vincula said: "It was Sister Theckla who spent that summer with the sick, and it was Sister Theckla who brought the child to us. Can you not go home with us? Or I could write to you at once—"
"No," said the lady. "I will go. The child shall not leave me—'
"And we will talk to Sister Theckla, and she will tell us all that she knows, and then—God willing—we shall know all."
The lady said: "Yes, we will all go together. We will go at once."
And so it was that when Sister Theckla had told all that she knew, then the lady knew (as she always had said she had known), past all doubting, that Bessie Bell had really found what she most wished for.
But we do not know how long it was before Bessie Bell really understood that the Wisest Woman in the world, who knew what little girls had almost forgotten how to remember, was her own Mother.
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When all the people on the high, cool mountains heard about all that the lady knew, and all that Sister Theckla told, and all that Bessie Bell had found, they were all as glad as they could be.
And when the boy with the long-striped-stocking-legs heard all about it he said: "That is fine! Bessie Bell said that she would find a Mama--and she has!"