Dorothy

These, and similar, outcries bombarded the hearing of Mrs. Cecil and, for a moment, frightened her. Glancing out of the window she beheld the throng and called to Ephraim:

"Boy! Telephone – the police! It's a riot of some sort! We're being mobbed!"

But Dinah knew better. She didn't yet understand why her mistress should bother with a couple of runaway young folks, but since she had done so it was her own part to share in that bother. So she promptly lifted the girl in her strong arms and carried her out to the broad piazza, so crowded with people in Sunday attire, and quietly explained to whomsoever would listen:

"Heah she is! Yas'm. Dis yere's de pos'man's li'l gal what's gone away wid de misery in his laigs. Yas'm. It sho'ly am. An' my Miss Betty, she's done foun' out how where he's gone at is right erjinin' ouah own prop'ty o' Deerhurst-on-de-Heights, where we-all's gwine in a right smart li'l while. Won't nottin' more bad happen dis li'l one, now my Miss Betty done got de care ob her. Yas'm, ladies an' gemplemen; an' so, bein's it Sunday, an' my folks mos' tuckered out, if you-all'd be so perlite as to go back to yo' housen an' done leab us res', we-all done be much obleeged. Yas'm. Good-bye."

Dinah's good-natured speech, added to the one glimpse of the rescued child, acted more powerfully than the police whom her mistress would have summoned; and soon the crowd drifted away, pausing only here and there to admire the beautiful grounds which, hitherto, most of these visitors had seen only from outside the gates.

But the Bruce family remained; and oh! the pride and importance which attached to them, thus distinguished! Or of that glad reunion with these old friends and neighbors, when Dorothy was once more in their arms, who could fitly tell? Then while Mabel and her restored playmate chattered of all that had happened to either since their parting, Mrs. Cecil drew the plumber aside and consulted him upon the very prosaic matter of clothes – clothes for now ill-clad Jim Barlow.

"I've decided to take him with us to New York State when we go, in a very few days. I shall employ him as a gardener on my property there, but he isn't fit to travel – as he's fixed now. Will you, at regular wages for your time, take him down town to-morrow morning and fit him out with suitable clothing, plain and serviceable but ample in quantity, and bring the bill to me? I'd rather you'd not let him out of your sight, for now that Dorothy is safe, the boy has ridiculous notions about his 'duty' to that dreadful old truck-farming woman who has let him work for her during several years at – nothing a year! And anybody who's so saturated with 'duty,' is just the man I want at Deerhurst, be he old or young."

To which the plumber answered:

"Indeed, Mrs. Cecil, I'm a proud man to be selected for the job and as to pay for my time – just you settle with me when I ask you for that. Pay? For such a neighborly turn? Well, I guess not. Not till I'm a good deal poorer than I am now. And if there's anything needed for Dorothy C., my wife'll tend to that, too, and be proud."

So with that matter settled, these good friends of the rescued children departed to their home and to what sleep they might find after so much delightful excitement.

Next day, too, because the doctor called in said that Dorothy must attempt no more walking until the end of the week, Mrs. Cecil had a pony cart sent for, and Ephraim with Dinah took the child upon a round of calls to all whom she had ever known in that friendly neighborhood. Mabel was invited to accompany her, and did so – the proudest little maiden in Baltimore. They even went to their school, and Miss Georgia left her class for full five minutes to go out and congratulate her late pupil upon this happy turn of affairs. But at number 77 Dorothy would not stop; would not even look. She felt she could not bear its changed condition, for underneath all this present joy her heart ached with longing for those beloved ones who had made that little house a home.

Also, now that it was drawing certainly near, it seemed as if the day of their reunion would never come; and when some time before, old Ephraim was sent on ahead with the horses and carriages, and the great heap of luggage which his lady found necessary to this annual removal, the child pleaded piteously to go with him.

"No, my dear, not yet. Two days more and you shall. You may count the hours. I sometimes think that helps time to pass, when one is impatient. They've been telegraphed to, have known all about you ever since Sunday night. They'll have time to make ready for you – and that's all. But, Brown Eyes, a 'penny for your thoughts!' What are they, pray, to make you look so serious?"

"I was thinking you're like a fairy godmother. You seem so able to do everything you want for everybody. I was wondering, too, what makes you so kind to – to me, after that day when I was saucy to you."

It came to the lady's mind to answer: "Darling, who could be aught but kind to you!" but flattery was not one of her failings and she had begun to fear that all the attention of these past days was turning her charge's head. So she merely suggested:

"I suppose I might be doing it for 'Johnnie.' I am very fond of him."

Thus Dorothy's vanity received a possibly needful snub; for a girl who was well treated because of her father couldn't be so much of a heroine after all!

The railway journey from Baltimore to New York was like a passage through fairyland to Dorothy C. and the farm-boy Jim. The wonders of their luxurious parlor-car surroundings kept them almost speechless with delight; but when at the latter great city they embarked upon a Hudson river steamer and they were free to roam about the palatial vessel, their tongues were loosened. Thereafter they talked so fast and so much that they hardly realized what was happening as Dinah called them to listen and obey the boat-officer's command:

"All ashore what's goin'! Aft' gangway fo' Cornwall! A-l-l – A-s-h-o-o-r-e!"

Over the gangplank, into the midst of a waiting crowd, and there was Ephraim with the carriage and the bays; and into the roomy vehicle bundled everybody, glad to be so near the end of that famous journey, and Dorothy quite unable to keep still for two consecutive moments.

"Up, up, up! How high we are going! Straight into the skies it seems!" cried the girl to Jim Barlow, whom nobody who had known him on the truck-farm would have recognized as the same lad, so neat and trim he now appeared.

But he had no words to answer. The wonderful upland country through which their course lay impressed him to silence, and the strength of those everlasting hills entered his ambitious soul – making him believe that to him who dared all high achievements were possible.

"Will – we never —never get there?" almost gasped Dorothy, in the breathless eagerness of these last few moments of separation from her loved ones. But Mrs. Cecil answered:

"Yes, my child. Round this turn of the road and behold! we are arrived! See, that big place yonder whose gates stand wide open is Deerhurst, my home, to which I hope you will often come. And, look this way – there is Skyrie! The little stone cottage on a rock, half-hidden in vines, empty for years, and now – Who is that upon its threshold? That man in the wheeled chair, risking his neck to hasten your meeting? Who that dainty little woman flying down the path to clasp you in her arms? Ah! Dorothy C.! Father and mother, indeed, they have proved to you and glad am I to restore you to them, safe and sound!"

Happy, happy Dorothy! At last, at last she was in the arms whose care had sheltered her through all her life; and there, for the time being, we must leave her. Of her life at Skyrie, of its haps and mishaps, of the mystery which still surrounded her birth and parentage, another book must tell.

Or how beautiful Mrs. Cecil, gay and satisfied as that veritable fairy godmother to which Dorothy had likened her, drove briskly home to Deerhurst and its accustomed stateliness, with humble Jim Barlow too grateful for speech, already beginning his new and richer life.

All these things and more belong with Dorothy Chester at Skyrie, and of them you shall hear by and by. Till then we leave her, well content.

THE END