having such a lovely home, oh, it just seems like this is a
Thanksgiving Day that will last _always_!"

She drew his head against her knee and stroked it tenderly. "Then how
would you like to live here yourself, dear?" she asked. "Mr. Estel
thinks that we need two boys."

"Oh, does he really want me, too? It's too good to be true!" Steven
was kneeling beside her now, his eyes shining like stars.

"Yes, we both want you," answered Mrs. Estel. "You shall be our own
little sons."

Steven crept nearer. "Papa and mamma will be so glad," he said in a
tremulous whisper. Then a sudden thought illuminated his earnest face.

"O Mrs. Estel! Don't you suppose they have found little Dorothy in
that other country by this time, and are taking care of her there,
just like you are taking care of us here?"

She put her arm around him, and drew him nearer, saying: "My dear
little comfort, it may be so. If I could believe that, I could never
feel so unhappy again."

Robin and "ze black dancin' bear" were not the only ones tucked
tenderly away to sleep that night.

The sleigh bells jingled along the avenue. Again the great church
organ rolled out a mighty flood of melody, that ebbed and flowed on
the frosty night air.

And Big Brother, with his head pillowed once more beside Robin's, lay
with his eyes wide open, too happy to sleep--lay and dreamed of the
time when he should be a man, and could gather into the great house he
meant to own all the little homeless ones in the wide world; all the
sorry little waifs that strayed through the streets of great cities,
that crowded in miserable tenements, that lodged in asylums and
poorhouses.

Into his child's heart he gathered them all, with a sweet
unselfishness that would have gladly shared with every one of them his
new-found home and happiness.

* * * * *

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Big Brother, by Annie Fellows-Johnston

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