Once, twice, three times she read the lines. Then turning puzzled, wondering eyes upon Aunt Pen, she whispered eagerly, "What does it all mean, please? Did she really feel that way, Aunt Pen? Did I scatter sunshine after all? Was she happier when I was with her? O, did I—make her—forget?"
"More than you will ever know," answered the woman warmly, squeezing the thin fingers lying across her knee. "You brought back the sunshine she thought had gone out of her life forever. You gave her something to live for, something to do, made life seem worth while. O, my little Peace, it is just as the poem tells you,—you gave her hope!"
For a long time the child lay lost in thought, and only the faint rustling of the leaves overhead broke the stillness. Then she said sadly, glancing down at the useless feet in their gay slippers, "But I had my legs then."
"You have your smile now. A happy heart is worth more than a dozen pair of legs, dear. It was your merry voice, your gay laughter, your joyous nature that cheered your Lilac Lady. Surely you didn't lose all those when you lost the use of your feet!"
Peace smiled ruefully. "You'd have thought so if you had lived with me since I got hurt," she confessed.
"I don't believe it," Aunt Pen vigorously contradicted. "Our real Peace, our little sunbeam has just been hiding under a dark cloud all this while. She is coming back to us her own gay self some day,—soon, we hope."
"Do you b'lieve that?" Peace eagerly demanded.
"I know it," the woman answered with conviction.
"But s'posing I have really forgotten how to laugh and—and whistle, and be nice?"
"Pshaw! As if you could have forgotten all that, dear! But even then, it is never too late to learn, you know."