"My father! oh, my father!" and his arms closed around her.
"Such a happy Easter!" said Aunt Angeliké, as Sunday morning dawned clear and beautiful. "My husband and Marco at home, Zoe's father come back to the child, Petro behaving not worse than usual and the Easter lamb roasting a perfect brown as I baste it with the lemon dipped in lard."
"Was it not wonderful that my father found me at Easter time?" said Zoe, a strangely radiant Zoe, with shining eyes and brilliant cheeks. "He had been ill for weeks in a strange place they call Chicago. There he met a Grecian from Argolis and from him he heard that the news had come from Thessaly that my mother and I were dead. At that he did not want to return home, but he wrote several times to Uncle Georgios to hear of us and had no answer. Of course those letters never came. At first he sold things from a little cart in the streets. Then he saved money and with another Grecian he had a shop with flowers to sell. The Americans are strange people. They have money to throw away! They buy fruit and flowers all the time. Think of so strange a country where one buys what here one may take with but a 'thank you' for pay! In the flower shop he made much money. But he was always sad. The money was of little good, since he had no one to share it with. Then he grew very homesick. He wanted once more to see Argolis and to sail on the blue seas of Greece. So he sold his flowers to his partner and took all his drachmas and returned home. He thought to spend his Easter here and go then to Thessaly to hear of my mother and myself and how we came to die. Then as Papa Demetrios said, 'Christ is risen!' lo! there was I risen from the dead."
"I thought it was a miracle," said her father. "For though the child is grown older, she is just like the Zoe whom I left, and to see alive her whom I thought dead was indeed a marvel."
"Shall you return to that far land?" asked Uncle Andreas, "and take Zoe from us?"
"Not so," said Zoe's father. "I shall stay here and have a fishing-boat, for home is best and I think Zoe would not be happy so far away."
"I am glad you will not take her from us," Aunt Angeliké said sweetly. "I have learned to love her as my daughter."
"I am glad, too," said Marco, and Uncle Andreas laid his hand upon her curls, saying, "We all love the child."
Zoe smiled happily and nestled up to her father.