Certainly this was as much as the most aggrieved of individuals could desire, and Starlight walked in, and dignity and resentment and everything else were forgotten as Hazel with tearful eyes told him of the evenings experiences. “Yes,” she said at the close of her narration, “I saw Mrs. Potter with my own eyes refuse to shake hands with mamma, and if it hadn't been time then to come home I do not know what I ever should have done.”
Starlight drew a deep sigh, but Hazel had grown a full inch in his estimation. It was real plucky in her to have kept her forlorn discovery to herself all the way home; he could almost understand now how she had slammed the door when she reached it. But what a shame it was that a family like the Bonifaces should be so shamefully treated! “Well, it's too bad, Hazel, that's all I can say,” he said; “but I suppose we may as well go to bed. It must be very late.”
“Why, where is Flutters?” asked Hazel, for the first time recalling his existence.
“Here,” answered a voice from the top of the hall stairway; “I was just coming down to see if I could not make Starlight come in.”
“I don't believe anybody could have made him,” said Hazel; “the Starlights must be a very proud family.”
“So must the Bonifaces,” answered Starlight, with the shadow of a smile; “but, then, I like proud families.”
“And so do I,” said Hazel.
A few moments afterward the little trio separated, and with the thought of “Better late than never,” Starlight crept gratefully into the bed of the little hall room, whose blankets and coverlid had been carefully folded back for him, full five hours before, by Dinah's kind black hands.