“Hardly with her father’s disgrace hanging over her head,” replied the judge wearily.  “Who,” he added, “would have the courage to marry a girl whose father was publicly disgraced?”

Both relapsed into another long silence, each mentally reviewing the past and speculating on the future.  Suddenly Mrs. Rossmore started.  Surely she could not be mistaken!  No, the clanging of a locomotive bell was plainly audible.  The train was in.  From the direction of the station came people with parcels and hand bags and presently there was heard the welcome sound of carriage wheels crunching over the stones.  A moment later they saw coming round the bend in the road a cab piled up with small baggage.

“Here they are!  Here they are!” cried Mrs. Rossmore.  “Come, Eudoxia!” she called to the servant, while she herself hurried down to the gate.  The judge, fully as agitated as herself, only showing his emotion in a different way, remained on the porch pale and anxious.

The cab stopped at the curb and Stott alighted, first helping out Mrs. Blake.  Mrs. Rossmore’s astonishment on seeing her sister was almost comical.

“Milly!” she exclaimed.

They embraced first and explained afterwards.  Then Shirley got out and was in her mother’s arms.

“Where’s father?” was Shirley’s first question.

“There—­he’s coming!”

The judge, unable to restrain his impatience longer, ran down from the porch towards the gate.  Shirley, with a cry of mingled grief and joy, precipitated herself on his breast.

“Father!  Father!” she cried between her sobs.  “What have they done to you?”

“There—­there, my child.  Everything will be well—­everything will be well.”

Her head lay on his shoulder and he stroked her hair with his hand, unable to speak from pent up emotion.

Mrs. Rossmore could not recover from her stupefaction on seeing her sister.  Mrs. Blake explained that she had come chiefly for the benefit of the voyage and announced her intention of returning on the same steamer.

“So you see I shall bother you only a few days,” she said.

“You’ll stay just as long as you wish,” rejoined Mrs. Rossmore.  “Happily we have just one bedroom left.”  Then turning to Eudoxia, who was wrestling with the baggage, which formed a miniature Matterhorn on the sidewalk, she gave instructions: 

“Eudoxia, you’ll take this lady’s baggage to the small bedroom adjoining Miss Shirley’s.  She is going to stop with us for a few days.”

Taken completely aback at the news of this new addition, Eudoxia looked at first defiance.  She seemed on the point of handing in her resignation there and then.  But evidently she thought better of it, for, taking a cue from Mrs. Rossmore, she asked in the sarcastic manner of her mistress: 

“Four is it now, M’m?  I suppose the Constitootion of the United States allows a family to be as big as one likes to make it.  It’s hard on us girls, but if it’s the law, it’s all right, M’m.  The more the merrier!” With which broadside, she hung the bags all over herself and staggered off to the house.