“David, I honestly believe I was homesick.  I didn’t know it before.  I got along all right before I knew she was coming, but now I want to jump up and down and shout.  Why on earth didn’t she take an earlier train and save me this agony?”

At last, in self-defense, David insisted that she should start, and, too impatient to wait for cars and to endure their stopping at every corner, she walked the two miles to the station, arriving breathless, perspiring and flushed.  Even then she was thirty minutes ahead of time, but finally the announcer called the train, and Carol stationed herself at the exit close to the gate to watch the long line of travelers coming up from the subway.  No one noticed the slender woman standing so motionless in the front of the waiting line, but the angels in Heaven must have marked the tumult throbbing in her heart, and the happiness stinging in her bright eyes.

Then—­she leaned forward.  That was Connie of course,—­she caught her breath, and tears started to her eyes.  Yes, that was Connie, that tall slim girl with the shining face,—­and oh, kind and merciful Providence, that must be her own little Julia trudging along beside her, the fat white face turning eagerly from side to side, confident she was going to know that mother on sight, just because they had told her a mother was what most belonged to her.

Carol twisted her hands together, wringing her gloves into a shred.  She moistened her dry lips, and blinked desperately to crowd away those tears.  Yes, it was Connie, the little baby sister she used to tease so mercilessly, and Julia, the little rosebud baby she had wanted so many nights.  She could not bear to let those ugly tears dim her sight for one minute, she dare not miss one second of that feast to her hungering eyes.

The two sisters who had not seen each other for nearly four years, looked into each other’s faces, Carol’s so pleadingly hungry for the vision of one of her own, Connie’s so strongly sweet and reassuring.  Instinctively the others drew away, and the little group, the red-capped attendant trailing in the rear, stood alone.

“Julia, this is your mama,” said Connie, and the wide blue eyes were lifted wonderingly into those other wide blue eyes so like them,—­the mother eyes that little Julia had never known.  Carol, with an inarticulate sob dropped on her knees and gathered her baby into her arms.

[Illustration:  Carol, with an inarticulate sob, gathered her baby in her arms.]

Julia, who had been told it was to be a time of laughter, or rejoicing, of utter gaiety, marveled at the pain in the face of this mother and patted away the tears with chubby hands, laughing with excitement.  By the time Carol could be drawn from her wild caressing of the rosebud baby, she was practically helpless.  It was Connie who marshaled them outside, tipped the red-capped attendant, waved a hand to the driver waiting across the street, directed him about the baggage, and saw to getting Carol inside and seated.