The days dragged slowly by for both Eva and Adele. Mrs. Green had been so angry because the daughters of the two best families in town had called upon her servant instead of upon her daughter, that she tried ever after to humiliate the girl, as though in some way it had been her fault.

Once only did Adele catch sight of Eva, and that was when the orphan was sitting beside Susetta in a handsome carriage, which was being slowly driven down the main street of the village. Susetta was elaborately dressed in a ruffled pale-blue silk, which was partly covered with a mantle of fluffy white furs. Her pale-blue hat was also fur-trimmed. Eva Dearman, by contrast, was dressed like a maid, in black, with white cap and apron. This was the first time that the orphan had been publicly humiliated, and her face looked very white as Adele passed on her pony.

“Good morning, Eva,” Adele called. A faint smile was the only reply that she received, but Susetta tossed her head angrily. She was imbibing more of her mother’s spirit every day.

Adele, who had intended to call upon Amanda at the orphanage, was so indignant at Eva’s public humiliation that she whirled her pony around and galloped home as fast as Firefly could go. She found her mother in the sewing-room. “Oh, mumsie!” she sobbed as she threw her arms about Mrs. Doring. “I can’t stand it! I won’t stand it!”

“Can’t stand what, pet?” her mother asked, as she smoothed the girl’s hair.

Then Adele told what she had seen, and she added, “Eva’s family was just as good as ours, or anybody’s, and she is so sensitive. I could tell by her white face that she was suffering cruelly, but she held her head high, and, oh, mumsie, for all the difference in clothes, any one could tell that Eva was the real lady.”

“Of course, dear,” Mrs. Doring replied. “It is not the work that we do nor the clothes that we wear, but just what we are, that makes us gentlewomen. But do not grieve so, Adele. Just think, in four days we shall have Eva here with us, and after that we will do all that we can to make her happy.”

“Well,” Adele said with a sigh, as she picked up her riding-hat, “if there is nothing that I can do about it, I might as well go over and see Amanda Brown. She is so lonely with Eva away.”

As Adele neared the orphanage, she saw the station-wagon stopping near the gate. “More orphans being brought to the Home, I suppose,” she thought, but instead, a man alighted and bade the driver wait. The stranger was about forty-five years of age, dressed in typical western style, and as he glanced at the girl, she saw that his weather-browned face was good-looking and kindly. Adele dismounted, and, tossing Firefly’s reins over a hitching-post, started up the gravelly walk, just back of the stranger. He turned and smiled pleasantly at her, as he asked, “Am I right in believing that this is the county orphanage?”

“Yes, it is,” Adele replied, walking beside him.

“Do you happen to know if this is where my niece, Eva Dearman, is staying?”

If the skies had opened and an angel had appeared to deliver Eva, Adele could not have been more surprised.

“Oh, sir!” she cried, scarcely able to believe what she had heard. “Are you really her uncle? Can it be true that poor Eva has an own relation?”

“Why do you call my niece ‘poor’?” the stranger asked with evident concern. “Is she ill or in trouble?”

Then Adele told the whole story. The face of Richard Dearman showed deep feeling as he listened, and then he said almost brokenly, “To think of my brother’s little girl enduring such humiliation!”

Then he strode to the orphanage door and inquired for Mrs. Friend. The matron was out and was not expected back for two hours.

The man then turned to Adele, as he asked, “Young lady, will you take me to the place where my niece is being treated like a servant?”

“Indeed I will, gladly,” Adele replied, and soon they were on the road, Richard Dearman in the station-wagon, and Adele riding alongside on Firefly.

Meanwhile Eva, sad and weary, was on her knees, cleaning the hardwood floor in Susetta’s room. Little did she dream of the great joy that was coming to her.

When they reached the imposing entrance to the Restwell estate, Adele bade Mr. Dearman good-by, believing that he would rather meet his niece alone. Just as the station-wagon stopped at the broad front steps, the door of the house opened, and a short man, with reddish complexion, hurried down. Mr. Dearman was at that moment alighting from the wagon, and the two men met face to face. There was an exclamation of pleased surprise from Mr. Green, as he hurried forward and extended his hand.

“Well, Dick Dearman!” he cried. “Whatever are you doing so far from the Woolly West? I swan, I never was so glad to see anybody! I’m sure tired of these Eastern dudes. The men are decent enough, you understand, but somehow they are different. Mighty good of you, Dick, to hunt us up.”

Before the visitor had time to explain the truth concerning his errand, the door opened again, and this time Mrs. Green, in her rose-colored house-dress, appeared, and Mr. Green called, “Melissy, do see who is here. Dick Dearman, the Cattle King of Silver Creek, has come to visit us.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Green,” the newcomer said. “I heard that you had given up the tavern business and had come east, but I did not dream that it was you with whom my niece, Eva Dearman, is staying.”

For a moment the face of Mrs. Green became very white and her eyes looked frightened. She had understood, from what the matron of the Home had told her, that Eva had no living relation, and now she suddenly found that Eva had an uncle, who was a man of wealth and influence in the West. What would he say if he knew how unkind she had been to the girl? But he must not know. She thought quickly, and aloud she exclaimed with pretended pleasure, “Well, now, is it possible that you are the uncle of our dear Eva? I didn’t suppose that she had any own folks, and I was so taken with her sweet face, when I was over at the orphanage, that I asked the matron to let her come and live with us, and be a sister to our lonely little girl.”

Mr. Dearman knew that this was not the truth, but he replied with extreme politeness. “You were indeed kind to take so much trouble to make my niece happy, but, as you may surmise, I am very eager to see my brother’s little girl; that is, if she is here.”

Mrs. Green knew very well that at that moment Eva was cleaning Susetta’s room, but she answered evasively, “I’m not sure that the girls have come home as yet. It was such a lovely day, I sent them for a drive.”

Then, turning to Mr. Green, she said: “Pa, you take Mr. Dearman into the library and I’ll see if I can find Eva. How pleased the dear child will be!”

Then the flustered woman hurried away. When the two men were in the library, Mr. Green excused himself, saying that he had an engagement with his banker, but that he would see their visitor at luncheon. Then he, too, departed, leaving Mr. Dearman alone.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Green had hastened to her daughter’s room. It was in perfect order, and Susetta, curled in a chair, was reading a book. The orphan was not there.

“Wherever is Eva Dearman?” Mrs. Green asked in such an excited tone of voice that Susetta looked up in surprise and inquired, “What’s wrong, ma?”

“Wrong? Everything’s wrong!” her mother replied. “Here we’ve been treating that orphan like a servant, and her uncle has just come for her, and he’s richer than your own pa even, and what would he say if he knew how we’d been treating the girl? But he mustn’t know! Susetta, find Eva at once and dress her up in some of your fine clothes and tell her that we didn’t intend to have her for a servant any longer. Tell her I was a-going to adopt her and have her for your sister.”

Then it was that something in Susetta which was like her blunt, honest father, awoke, and her eyes flashed as she replied,

“I won’t tell Eva any such thing, ma, because it’s a lie.”

The mother cowed before her daughter’s reproof, and then hurried down the hall to see if Eva was in her room, but she was not there. The girl had gone down-stairs to replace the cleaning utensils in the kitchen-closet. She was about to return to her room when the parlor-maid appeared with a vase of flowers.

“Oh, Eva,” she said, “won’t you please take these into the library? I have so much to do, I will never get through.”

Eva, always willing to oblige, took the cut-glass vase with its bouquet of sweet pink roses and went toward the library, little dreaming that her very own uncle was waiting in there.

The girl had one hand on the silk plush portiÈres, and was about to push them back, when she heard her name called softly from above.