“Well, what’s the matter?” demanded Mary, still more impatiently. “If you don’t want to come in, what did you bring me all the way down-stairs to answer the bell for?”
“They’re coming up here,” gasped Daisy, “and it is—oh, Dulcie, I’m sure it is.”
“Is the name of one of these little girls Daisy Winslow?” inquired the young man, as he came up the steps, and though his voice was kind, and his face very pleasant, Daisy shrank behind her sister, in a fit of uncontrollable shyness and embarrassment. So it was Dulcie who answered the question.
“Yes, sir,” she faltered, “that is, at least—I am Dulcie Winslow. Do you want to speak to my sister Daisy?”
“I do very much indeed. May we come in? My name is Oliver, and I think you know my sister, who lives next door.”
Just how it all happened Dulcie and Daisy could never clearly recall, but in a very short space of time, they had gone into the house, passed the astonished Mary, and were seated in the parlor; the baby, once more restored to her mother’s lap, gazing about her, with an air of serene content, and uttering little crows and gurgles of satisfaction. Daisy’s first impulse had been to escape, but on second thought she decided that it would be cowardly to leave Dulcie alone, to take the consequences of whatever might be in store for them, so she stayed where she was, and, after all, there was nothing very alarming in the young man’s few words of explanation.
“I received a letter a few days ago,” he began, as soon as they were all seated, and Mary, still very much puzzled, and not at all sure of the wisdom of admitting strangers in the absence of Mrs. Winslow and her daughter, had closed the front door. “It was signed Daisy Winslow, and the writer said she was a little girl who lived next door to my sister Miss Oliver.”
“I wrote it,” said Daisy, desperately. “Are you Miss Polly’s brother?”
“Yes, I am,” the young man answered, and he held out his hand with such a kind, friendly smile, that all Daisy’s fears melted away on the instant.
“I want to thank you for telling me what you did in that letter, but I must ask a few more questions before seeing my sister. That is why we came here first. This is my wife, Mrs. Oliver.”