Mrs. Biggs and Peter were in the house by this time, and heard what Eloise was saying.

“Better not,” Peter began.  “I don’t know as you can see him.  You stay here.  I’ll inquire.”

He started up the stairs, followed by Eloise, who had no idea of staying behind.

“Wait,” he said, motioning her back as he reached the Colonel’s door, and saw her close beside him.  “Let me go in first.”

He left the door ajar and walked into the room where the Colonel was sitting just as he had sat the morning before, when Jake’s letter and Eloise’s note were brought to him.  He had not slept at all during the night, and was in a trembling condition, with a feeling of numbness in his limbs which he did not like.

“Well?” he said sharply, as Peter came in, and he saw by his face that something had happened.  “What’s up now?”

“Nothing, but Miss Smith, the teacher,” Peter replied.  “She wants to see you.”

“Miss Smith, the normal?  Do you mean Eliza Ann?  Tell her to go away.  I can’t see anybody,” the Colonel said.

“I’ll tell her, but I’m afraid she won’t go,” Peter replied, starting for the door, through which a little figure came so swiftly as nearly to knock him down, and Eloise, who had forgotten her lameness, stood before the astonished Colonel, her face glowing with excitement, and her eyes shining like stars as she confronted him.

Old as he was, the Colonel was not insensible to female beauty, and the rare loveliness of this young girl moved him with something like admiration, and made his voice a little softer as he said, “Are you Eliza Ann Smith?  What do you want?”

“I am not Eliza Ann,” Eloise answered quickly.  “I am Eloise Albertina Smith.  My father was Homer Smith; my mother was Eudora Harris, from Florida, a concert singer, till she lost her mind and was put in a private asylum in San Francisco.  You took her out, and she is here.  You call her Mrs. Amy.  She never told me of you.  I don’t know why.  She never talked much of her girlhood.  I don’t think she was very happy.  She sent me this cloak, and that’s how I knew she was here.  I have worn it many times when a child.  I knew it in a moment, and I have come to see her.  Where is she?”

This was worse than Jake’s letter, and every nerve in the Colonel’s body was quivering with excitement, and he felt as if a hundred prickly sensations were chasing each other up and down his arms and legs, and making his tongue thick as he tried to call for Peter.  Succeeding at last, he said faintly, “Take this girl away before she kills me.”

“I shall not go,” Eloise rejoined, “until I see my mother.  I tell you she is my mother.  Has she never spoken of me?”

“Never,” the Colonel answered.  “She has talked of a baby who died, and you are not dead.”

“No, but I am Baby,—­her pet name for me always.  Why she should think me dead, I don’t know.  Send for her, and see if she does not know me.”