“I must show this ring to the girls,” she said, presently, when they heard Mrs. Sherman coming back.  Then she hesitated, her eyes sparkling with the pleasure of a sudden thought.

“Oh, papa, I’d like to give Lloyd and Joyce and Betty each a ring like mine, to help them remember, you know, and as a souvenir of the house party.  Don’t you think that would be nice?  I have scarcely touched my allowance this month.  Couldn’t we go to the city to-morrow and get them?”

“Yes, I think so,” answered her father.  “We’ll ask Cousin Elizabeth about the trains.”

Early next morning Mr. Forbes and Eugenia went into the city on their little excursion, and scarcely had they gone when a telegram arrived from Mr. Sherman, saying he would be home on the noon train.  The Little Colonel went dashing around the house, from one room to another, calling out the news in the greatest excitement.

“Have you heard it?  Papa Jack’s comin’!  Grandfathah is goin’ to stay several weeks longah, but Papa Jack’s comin’ on the noon train to-day!”

Some one else came on that noon train, some one whom Doctor Fuller met in his buggy and took immediately up to Locust.  It was the oculist who had been there before.  Lloyd was so excited over her father’s arrival that she scarcely noticed they were in the house, and she never knew when they gravely made their examination of Betty’s eyes and as gravely went away again.

But late that afternoon, Eugenia and her father, driving up from the station, were surprised to see a cloud of dust whirling rapidly down the road toward them.  As they came nearer they saw that Tarbaby was in the centre of it, and on his bare back perched the Little Colonel, the hot June sun beating down on her bare head and red face.  As she came within calling distance, she waved her arms frantically to stop the carriage, and shrieked out, at the top of her voice:  “Papa Jack’s home, and, oh, Eugenia, Betty can see!”

The carriage stopped, and Eugenia leaned out eagerly.

“I couldn’t wait for you to get home,” cried the Little Colonel.  “As soon as I heard the train whistle I jumped on Tarbaby without a saddle or anything, and just toah down heah to tell you.  Of co’se she can’t use her eyes much fo’ a long time, and will have to weah a shade fo’ weeks, but when they tested her eyes she saw!  And she isn’t goin’ to be blind!”

Eugenia gave a great, deep sigh of thankfulness, and leaned limply back in the carriage.  “Oh, papa,” she exclaimed, “you can’t imagine what a relief it is to hear that!  I felt so much to blame, that now it seems as if a great weight had been lifted off from me.”

They were having a jubilee in Betty’s room when Eugenia and her father reached the house.  Mrs. Sherman told them so, from the head of the stairs and called them to come on up and join in it.

It was a very quiet jubilee.  The doctor had insisted on that; but the unspoken joy of the little face on the pillow made happiness in every heart.  It was the first time that Mr. Forbes had seen Betty.  She was lying with her brown curls tossed back on the pillows, her eyes still bandaged; but the smile on the little mouth was one of the sweetest, gladdest things he had ever seen.  Involuntarily he stooped and kissed her softly on the forehead.