y 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.

Stott explained that the larger pieces and the trunks would come
later by express. Mrs. Rossmore took him aside while Mrs. Blake
joined Shirley and the judge.