“Here they are!  Here they are!” shouted Just, from behind a window curtain, where he had been keeping close watch on the circle of radiance from the nearest arc-light.  There was a rush for the door.  Jeff flung it open, and he and Just raced to the hansom which was driving up.  The rest of the party crowded the doorway, Mrs. Peyton and Lucy and Randolph being of the group.

“How are you, everybody?” called Doctor Churchill’s eager voice, as he and Charlotte ran up the walk to the door, Jeff and Just following.  “Well, this is fine!  Father—­mother—­Celia—­my little Ellen—­bless your hearts, but it’s good to see you!”

How could anybody help loving a son-in-law like that?  One would have thought they were indeed his own.  While Charlotte remained wrapped in her mother’s embrace, Doctor Churchill was greeting them all twice over, with apparently no eyes for the three he had not expected to see.  For the moment it was plain that he had not recognized them, and supposed them to be strangers to whom he would presently be made known.

But now, as somebody moved aside and the light struck upon her, he caught the smile on Mrs. Peyton’s face.  He left off shaking Jeff’s hand, and made a quick movement toward the little figure in black.

“Why, Cousin Lula!” he exclaimed.

Charlotte, at the moment hugging little Ellen with laughter and kisses, turned at the cry, and saw her husband greeting with great cordiality these strange people whom she, too, had supposed to be the guests of her mother.

“Charlotte,” said Doctor Churchill, turning about, “this is my cousin, Mrs. Peyton, of Virginia—­and her children.”

Charlotte came forward, cordially greeted Mrs. Peyton and Lucy and Randolph, and led them into the living-room as if the moment were that of their arrival instead of her own.

“She has the stuff in her, hasn’t she?” murmured Just to Jeff, as the two stood at one side of the fireplace.

“Could you ever doubt it?” returned Jeff, with as much emphasis as can be put into a mumbled retort.  Jeff had been Charlotte’s staunchest champion all his life.

“Ah, Fieldsy, but I’m glad to be back!” Doctor Churchill assured his housekeeper, in the kitchen, to which he had soon found his way.  “We’ve had a glorious time down in the Virginia mountains, but this is home now, as it never was before, and it’s great fun to be here.  How are you?  You’re looking fine.”

“And I’m feeling fine,” assented Mrs. Fields, her spare face lighted into something like real comeliness by the pleasure in her heart.  “Just one thing, Doctor Andy.  I’m terrible sorry them relatives of yours happened along just now.  If I’d gone to the door—­well—­I don’t believe but I’d have seen my way clear to—­”

Churchill shook his head, smiling.  “No, Fieldsy, you know you wouldn’t.  Besides, Cousin Lula looks far from well, and she’s had a lot of trouble.  It’s all right, you know.  My, but this is a good dinner we have coming to us!”