"Kate!" called Uncle John's voice here, "will you come into the parlor?" and Mrs. Fleming, obeying this call, found herself a minute after exchanging greetings with the unexpected visitor.
"I want you to tell her, Doctor, just what you've told me exactly," said Uncle John. "It's about Ally, my dear," to his wife. "She's found, and—and—"
"She is at my house," took up the Doctor; and then he told of the little girl who had come to his house the night before, of her grievous disappointment, and the accident that had befallen her,—an accident that had robbed her of consciousness for a time, and from which she had only sufficiently recovered within the last few hours to answer the questions that were put to her in regard to her relations, that steps might be taken to restore her to them.
"And she is seriously hurt,—she couldn't come with you?" broke in Aunt Kate, breathlessly.
"No, she was not seriously hurt," he assured her; and then came that most delicate and difficult part of the Doctor's task,—to tell, in what gentle phrase he could, that this wilful child refused to accompany him; that she had taken a foolish fancy into her head that her relations did not care for her,—a fancy that had been strengthened into positive belief when she failed to find her uncle at the station, and had suggested to her a wild little plan of going away from them altogether, into some orphans' home that she had heard of, where she was sure a place could be found for her. Very gentle, indeed, was the phrasing of all this,—so gentle and full of sweet human consideration for everybody's shortcomings and mistakes that Aunt Kate forgot that the Doctor was a stranger; and with this forgetfulness the sharp pang of humiliation at a stranger's knowledge of such a family difficulty, and the little sting of resentment at Ally's attitude towards them all, was overborne to such an extent that she could frankly admit that her husband was right, and that none of them had had love and patience enough to help the child to fit into the new circumstances of her life.
It was an added pang, but there was no resentment in it, when she saw Ally's sudden shrinking from her as she entered the Doctor's parlor with him a little later.
To think that they had, though unwittingly, hurt and estranged the child like this, was Mrs. Fleming's first thought; and the tears came to her eyes, and her voice broke as she cried impulsively, "Oh, my little girl, my little girl!"
Ally started at the sight of these tears, at the sound of this tenderly breaking voice. And there was Uncle John; and he was crying too, and his voice was breaking as he said something. What was it he was saying?—that it was not forgetfulness, it was not neglect of her, that had made him fail to meet her at the station, but an untoward accident to the streetcar he was in that had delayed him. And what was that Aunt Kate was saying? That they did care for her, that they did want her, and that they had set the telegraphic wires all over the country to hunt for her and bring her back to them.
"But—but—Florence told me," faltered Ally, "that you dreaded the winter on my account,—I was so—so bad-tempered—so hard to live with."
"Dreaded the winter on your account! Florence told you I said that?" cried Mrs. Fleming, in amazement.