“I suppose I can’t help looking for a likeness, my dear.  But you must take after your mother, whom I never saw.  Your father’s eyes were full and limpid; yours are large, and clear, and bright; very good eyes, my dear, but they are not limpid.  His mouth was flexible and mobile, but yours is firm.  Your hair, however, reminds me somewhat of his, which was much your light shade of brown when he was young.  And now, sir”—­she addressed Joe—­“now that you have brought this dear girl all the way across the Atlantic, what are you going to do?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know that there’s anything to keep me,” said Joe.  “You see, I’ve got my practice to look after at home—­I am a physician, as I told you—­and my wife and children; and the sooner I get back the better, now that I can leave Iris with her friends, safe and comfortable.  Stay,” he added, “there are all those papers which I promised you—­the certificates, and the rest of them.  You had better take them all, miss, and keep them for Iris.”

“Thank you,” said Clara, touched by this confidence; “Iris will be safe with me.  It is very natural that you should want to go home again.  And you will be content to stay with me, my dear, won’t you?  You need not be afraid, sir; I assure you that her interests will not in any way suffer.  Tell her to write and let you know exactly what is done.  Let her, however, since she is an English girl, remain with English friends, and get to know her cousins and relations.  You can safely trust her with me, Dr. Washington.”

“Thank you,” said Joe.  “You know that when one has known a girl all her life, one is naturally anxious about her happiness.  We are almost brother and sister.”

“I know; and I am sure, Mr. Washington, we ought to be most grateful to you.  As for the money you have expended upon her, let me once more beg of you—­”

Joe waved his hand majestically.

“As for that,” he said, “the money is spent.  Iris is welcome to it, if it were ten times as much.  Now, madam, you trusted me, the very first day that you saw me, with two hundred pounds sterling.  Only an English lady would have done that.  You trusted me without asking me who or what I was, or doubting my word.  I assure you, madam, I felt that kindness, and that trust, very much indeed, and in return, I have brought you Iris herself.  After all expenses paid of coming over and getting back, buying a few things for Iris, if I find that there’s anything over, I shall ask you to take back the balance.  Madam, I thank you for the money, but I am sure I have repaid you—­with Iris.”

This was a very clever speech.  If there had been a shadow of doubt before it in Clara’s heart (which there was not), it would vanish now.  She cordially and joyfully accepted her newly-found cousin.

“And now, Iris,” he said with a manly tremor in his voice, “I do not know if I shall see you again before I go away.  If not, I shall take your fond love to all of them at home—­Tom, and Dick, and Harry, and Harriet, and Prissy, and all of them”—­Joe really was carrying the thing through splendidly—­“and perhaps, my dear, when you are a grand lady in England, you will give a thought—­a thought now and again—­to your old friends across the water.”