“I’ll be your own little girl, and I’ll take care of you, too. You know, you said I could.”
Dr. Van Valkenberg turned to the nurse.
“I shall go with you to her cousin’s, from the train,” he announced. “I’m ready to give them all the proofs they need that I’m a suitable guardian for the child, but,” he added, with a touch of the boyishness that had never left him, “I want this matter settled now.”
The long train pounded its way into the station at Chicago, and the nurse hurriedly put on Hope’s coat and gloves and fastened the ribbons of her hood under her chin. Dr. Van Valkenberg summoned a porter.
“Take care of all these things,” he said, indicating both sets of possessions with a sweep of the arm. “I shall have my hands full with my little daughter.”
He gathered her into his arms as he spoke, and she nestled against his broad chest with a child’s unconscious satisfaction in the strength and firmness of his clasp. The lights of the great station were twinkling in the early dusk as he stepped off the train, and the place was noisy with the greetings exchanged between the passengers and their waiting friends.
“Merry Christmas,” “Merry Christmas,” sounded on every side. Everybody was absorbed and excited, yet there were few who did not find time to turn a last look on a singularly attractive little child, held above the crowd in the arms of a tall man. She was laughing triumphantly as he bore her through the throng, and his heart was in his eyes as he smiled back at her.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] By special permission of the author.