Then, when they got to the house even Father was so far gone that he couldn’t let them go up-stairs alone.  He just had to leave the machine standing by the kitchen door and carry that little hand-bag up as an excuse to see how she would like the room.

Bonnie, pulling off her gloves, entered the room when Mother opened the door.  She looked around bewildered a moment, as if she had stepped from the middle of winter into a summer orchard.  Then she cried out with delight: 

“Oh!  How perfectly beautiful!  You don’t mean me to have this lovely room?  It isn’t right!  A stranger and a pauper!”

“Nothing of the kind!” growled Father, patting her on the shoulder.  “Just a daughter come home!”

Then he beat a hasty retreat to the fireplace and touched a match to the fire already laid, while Mother, purring like a contented old pussy, pushed the bewildered girl into the big flowered chair in front of the fire and began unfastening her coat and taking off her hat, reverently, half in awe, for she was not used to girl’s fixings, and they held almost as much mystery for her as if she had been a man.

In the midst of it all Mother remembered that dinner ought to be eaten at once, and that Bonnie must have a chance to wash her face and straighten her hair before dinner.

So Father and Mother, with many a reluctant lingering and last word, as if they were not going to see her for a month, finally bustled off together.  In just no time at all Bonnie was down there, too, begging to be allowed to help, and declaring herself perfectly able, although her white face and the dark rings under her tired eyes belied her.  Mother Marshall was not sure, after all, but she ought to have put Bonnie to bed and fed her with chicken broth and toast instead of letting her come down-stairs to eat stewed chicken, little fat biscuits with gravy, and the most succulent apple pie in the world, with a creamy glass of milk to make it go down.

Father had just finished trying to make Bonnie take a second helping of everything, when he suddenly dropped the carving-knife and fork with a clatter and sprang up from his chair: 

“I declare to goodness, Mother, if I didn’t forget!” he said, and rushed over to the telephone.

“Why, that’s so!” cried Mother.  “Don’t forget to tell him how much we love her!”

Bonnie looked from one to the other of them in astonishment.

“It’s that young man!” explained Mother.  “He wanted we should telegraph if you got here all safe.  You know he sent us a message after he put you on the train.”

“How very thoughtful of him!” said Bonnie, earnestly.  “He is the most wonderful young man!  I can’t begin to tell you all he did for me, a mere stranger!  And so that explains how you knew where to send your message.  I puzzled a good deal over that.”

Four hours later Courtland, coming up to his room after basket-ball practice, a hot shower, and a swim in the pool, found the telegram: