“Ant water?” Mrs. Schmitz volunteered excitedly.
“Yes. How—do you know?”
“How do I know? Because you are mine leetle Ida! Because mine father write that song for you, and taught it to you. And it never was printed, ant no one sings it but mine leetle Ida!” She smoothed back the girl’s hair, and studied her face anxiously.
“That’s true. No one sings it but me.”
“Ant I was that tall woman; in America I grow fat.”
“Ida! Ida,” the girl mused, giving the name its German sound. “They used to call me so; I can dimly remember.”
With one sweep of her loving arms Mrs. Schmitz took the girl to her heart, so long hungry for her child. Ida, who had drifted from the orphan asylum to one home after another, had found at last the mother for whom she had so long prayed.
It was the daughter who first noticed that others had approached. The discovery of her mother had changed her whole future. In a moment, almost in a breath, the shadowy hand of family relationship had reached across the sea, bringing dim memories of her native land and speech; had given her a family where before she had been a lonely waif. Yet, for this is the way of youth, the present moment seemed the all important one to her.