I only know that over my head I heard Father Dan
saying, as if speaking to a child:
"You are happy now, are you not?"
"Yes, yes, I am happy now," my mother answered.
"You have everything you want?"
"Everything--everything!"
Then came my father's voice, saying:
"Well, you've got your girl, Isabel. You wanted her, so we sent for her,
and here she is."
"You have been very good to me, Daniel," said my mother, who was kissing
my forehead and crying in her joy.
When I raised my head I found Father Dan in great excitement.
"Did you see that then?" he was saying to Doctor Conrad.
"I would have gone on my knees all the way to Blackwater to see it."
"I couldn't have believed it possible," the Doctor replied.
"Ah, what children we are, entirely. God confounds all our reckoning. We
can't count with His miracles. And the greatest of all miracles is a
mother's love for her child."
"Let us leave her now, though," said the Doctor. "She's like herself
again, but still . . ."
"Yes, let us leave them together," whispered Father Dan, and having
swept everybody out before him (I thought Aunt Bridget went away
ashamed) he stepped off himself on tiptoe, as if treading on holy
ground.
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