“Did you know you’d have to make room for me, Padre?  Well, you will.  I picked up and fairly ran away from everything and everybody, because the longing for home grew upon me intolerably.  When I was in Europe, and I used to think that three thousand miles of water lay between me and Appleboro, I used to cry at nights.  I hope John Flint’s butterflies told him what I told them to tell him for me, when they came by!  How beautiful the old place looks!  Padre, you’re thin.  Why will you work so hard?  Why doesn’t somebody stop you?  And—­you’re gray, but how perfectly beautiful gray hair is, and how thick and wavy yours is, too!  Gray hair was invented and intended for folks with French blood and names.  Nobody else can wear it half so gracefully.  Now tell me first of all you’re glad as glad can be to see me, Padre.  Say you haven’t forgotten me—­and then you can tell me everything else!”

She paused, fanned herself with her hat, and laughed, looking up at me with her blue, blue eyes that were so heavily fringed with black.

I was so startled by her sudden appearance—­as if she had walked out of my prayers, like an angel; and, above all, by that resemblance to the one long since dust and unremembered of all men’s hearts save mine, that I could hardly bear to look upon her.  That other one seemed to have stepped delicately out of her untimely grave; to sit once more beside me, and thus to look at me once more with unforgotten eyes.  Thou knowest, my God, before whom all hearts are bare, that I could not have loved thee so singly nor served thee without fainting, all these years, if for one faithless moment I could have forgotten her!

My mother came out of the house with a garden hat tied over her white hair, and big garden gloves on her hands.  At sight of the girl she uttered a joyful shriek, flung scissors and trowel and basket aside, and rushed forward.  With catlike quickness the girl leaped to her feet and the two met and fell into each other’s arms.  I wished when I saw the little woman’s arms close so about the girl, and the look that flashed into her face, that heaven had granted her a daughter.

“Mother complained that I should at least have the decency to wire you I was coming—­she said I was behaving like a child.  But I wanted to walk in unannounced.  I was so sure, you see, that there’d be welcome and room for me at the Parish House.”

“The little room you used to like so much is waiting for you,” said my mother, happily.

“Next to yours, all in blue and white, with the Madonna of the Chair over the mantelpiece and the two china shepherdesses under her?”