“You see, I’ve been prayin’ for this thing for a good many years,” she went on quaintly, “an’ it looks like Providence sort o’ saw fit to answer me at last.  An’ He jest picked out the sweetes’ little ladies He could find to be His instruments.”

The girls laughed unsteadily and Betty’s young hand tightened on the old one.

“We feel as if it all must be a fairy story,” she said softly.

“That’s jest what it is—­a fairy story,” cried the little old lady, turning those wonder-filled eyes upon them.

“It must have seemed sort o’ strange to you about the name,” she added, after a short pause.

Betty saw that Grace was about to interrupt, but a warning glance stopped her.

“You see, his real name is William Mullins Sanderson.  But when he ran away he dropped the Sanderson so’s they couldn’t arrest him for somethin’ he didn’t do—­poor little lad.”  Her voice was very soft and her eyes tender.  “He would have come back to me, only he heard that I was dead and thought ‘twasn’t any use.  He said he’d jest been eatin’ his heart out, thinkin’ of old days an’ how he’d promised to make a fortune for us both an’ buy a big house where I wouldn’t ever have to work again ’less I wanted to.  An’ now he says,” she straightened up and her eyes flashed with pride in him, “he says, soon’s the war is over he’s goin’ to make that old dream come true.

“He’d been studyin’ to be a lawyer, an’ had jest passed his ’bar exams’—­so he called ’em—­when the war broke out, an’ he jes’ couldn’t resist the call o’ the bugle.  O’ course he couldn’t!” Once more was heard that thrill of pride.  “Wasn’t he my Willie boy, who had the blood of fightin’ ancestors in his veins as well as brains an’ a love o’ book larnin’ from his pa?

“But he says when the war’s over he’s goin’ back to his books an’ make good, an’,” with simple assurance; “I know he will.  Jest think,” she added dreamily, “my little son, a lawyer!

“But I ain’t never goin’ to forget,” she cried, flinging her head up with a martial gesture, “that first of all, he was a soldier!”

CHAPTER XXV

TO “CARRY ON”

“I could be completely happy,” sighed Betty, “if it weren’t for just one thing.”

It was more than a week after the wonderful discovery in their Sergeant Mullins as Mrs. Sanderson’s long lost son, and until this afternoon the girls had hardly been able to find a minute to get together and discuss the remarkable affair.

But to-day they had secured very reliable substitutes to fill their places for a few hours and the Outdoor Girls had decided to make the most of this rare holiday.

Mollie had suggested a spin in the machine, and the girls had eagerly assented, anxious to blow the cobwebs of hard work and confinement from their brains and get out on the open road where they could think clearly and freely.