“No,” he answered, never looking so handsome or so happy in his life. “He talked it all over with me. He seemed to think it the one way out of the difficulty.”
“And you knew he was—he was going to say all this to me?”
“No, I never so much as dreamt it for a minute, I assure you, or that he was going to take matters into his own hands. On the contrary, I wanted to come alone this afternoon, but come he would. He had evidently thought out his own course of action, and I shall bless him for it all my life.”
CHAPTER XI.—A RED-LETTER AFTERNOON.
They were a happy trio that set out for Arlington a half hour later. Harry and Courage walked closely, side by side, for there was much to be said that could not by any chance have any interest for Brevet; besides, you could not have kept Brevet still enough for five seconds together to listen to anything. He was quite as wild with joy as any little terrier, liberated from his kennel for the first run over the hills in a fortnight. But the joy that made him run hither and thither, and come bounding back to press a flower into Courage’s hands, or simply to look up to her face, or brush affectionately against her in true terrier fashion, was something more than animal spirits. Courage was coming up to Ellismere to live! Courage was coming! No little May-time songster was ever more joyous over the coming of Spring, and Brevet would have trilled as glad a carol if he could. But of the three Courage was, if possible, the very happiest, for she had such a happy secret in her keeping—that is, in her pocket—for the mail had brought the expected letter. The secret, however, must stay a secret until she should reach Arlington and could have a little private talk with Joe; and so she hurried Harry along much faster than was at all to his liking, for Harry would have been glad to have that walk last for “a year and a day,” and so perhaps would Courage, save for the letter.
It was not that it contained any wonderful revelation—it simply said that unfortunately the asylum authorities knew nothing more of Sylvia’s antecedents than she herself knew; that she had simply been thrust in at the asylum door by some old woman who succeeded in beating a mysterious retreat into the darkness before any one had seen her. A scrap of paper pinned to her dress bore the name of Sylvia, and the statement that the child had neither father nor mother. In addition to this the only possible clew lay in two or three articles found at the time in Sylvia’s keeping. They had been given to her when she left the institution, the matron impressing upon her the need and importance of guarding them carefully, as they would possibly prove of great value some day. They regretted very keenly that they were unable to furnish any further information. But, nevertheless, the letter stirred the first real hope for Courage that Joe was right in his conjecture, for it reminded her of the little belongings Sylvia had once shown her—a coral necklace, a gay little silver belt set with imitation turquoise and rubies in great variety, and a much-used devotional book. She remembered there was no writing in the book save the name of what appeared to be some gentleman’s country-place and some date way back in the fifties. She could not recall the name, but she thought she would know it if she heard it, and felt quite sure, now that she came to think of it, that she had heard a name on Mammy’s lips that sounded like it. No wonder that something seemed far more important just then than even her own great happiness, and that she was impatient to reach Joe’s cabin.