Parents, sisters, home,—this was a rich endowment, indeed, for a lonely, orphaned girl to fall heir to. But Cannie had earned her good fortune, and every member of the family had learned to value and to wish to keep her.
It was Mrs. Gray who broke the happy news to her.
"Shall you like it? Will you be content to stay with us always?" she asked.
"Why, Cousin Kate, what a question! How could I help liking it? I never knew what happy meant, till I came to you," answered Cannie, flushed with emotion and pleasure. "It's only that it seems too good to be true! Why, only yesterday I was counting the days till the fifteenth of October; because, you know, you are going back to town then, and I thought you would send me back to Aunt Myra, and I said, 'I shall only be happy for twenty-four days more, perhaps only twenty-three,'—for, you see, I didn't feel sure that you could keep me till the very last day. And now there is going to be no end to the happy times. I can't see what makes you so good to me, Cousin Kate."
"I think we can understand that better than you can," her cousin replied. "We need you, Cannie, as much as you need us. The benefit will be mutual."
"Need me! when you have Cousin Court and the girls?"
"Cousin Court and the girls need you too.—Don't we, Georgie? Come in and help me explain to Candace that all of us want her, and all of us are glad to have her stay."
"Indeed, we do. Cannie, I can't talk about it, for it's like a bad dream from which I have waked up, and I don't like to recall it; but I never shall forget how good you were to me that horrible day. It was you who persuaded me to go to mamma. I never should have gone if you hadn't somehow swept me up and made me. And, oh, if I hadn't!—How could I be afraid of you, dear, darling mamma?—She was just what you said she would be, Cannie. She knew just what to do; she understood in a moment. She was so kind! I feel as if Trinity Church had been rolled off my mind. It was all your doing, and I never can forget it."
"Georgie is right," said Mrs. Gray. "Don't look so bewildered, dear. You did her a real service in persuading her to be brave and frank. I don't know why it is so hard for children to trust their parents. It is the parents' fault somehow, no doubt."
"Oh, mother, no! It was only that I dreaded to have you think ill of me."