“Did you know our grandfather?”
“I used to see him often when I was a little girl. We were neighbors in New York, and his son Jim was a great friend of mine.”
“Why, that’s our papa!” cried Dulcie, shame and disappointment alike forgotten in the excitement of this discovery. “How wonderful to think you knew Papa. Perhaps you knew Mamma, too.”
“No, I never saw your father after he went to college, but we were great friends as children. He was a very nice boy.”
“He’s the loveliest man in the world,” declared Daisy, with shining eyes.
Mrs. Thorne smiled.
“Is he indeed?” she said. “One would hardly think you were so fond of him when you have been trying to run away from him.”
“Oh, we weren’t running away from Papa,” cried Dulcie, quite horrified at the suggestion. “We love him better than any one else in the world, and we were so happy when we knew he was coming home from China, but then we heard about the stepmother, and I thought—I was afraid——” Dulcie paused in hopeless confusion.
“We didn’t want to be incumbrances,” said Daisy. “Aunt Julia Chester said we were incumbrances to Grandma. Dulcie looked up the word in the dictionary, and it means the same thing as being a burden. Dulcie thought we might be able to work for our living, even if we were only little girls, and so——”
“And so you ran away, like two very foolish children, and took your younger sisters with you. I suppose it never occurred to you how unhappy you would make your father.”