ack from Africa. My father hasn't, because he's got to hunt
lions. But my mother and me, we're going to live in a little cottage
in--in, well, some place. And there's a garden a-a-all around the
cottage,"--she made a sweeping gesture with one short arm--"a garden of
roses! And I'm going to have my mother every day. And she loves me!
And she's good, and brave, and sweet, and pretty."

At that moment, Sue Milo was beautiful. All the tenderness of a heart
starved of its rightful love looked from her eyes. And her face shone
as if lighted by a flame. "I--love you!" she said tremulously.

"Do you?"--there was an answering look of love in the eyes of the child.

"Oh, _so_ tenderly!"

The little face sobered. The small figure moved forward a step.
"I'm--I'm glad"--almost under her breath. "Because--because I love
_you_, too." Then coming still closer, and looking earnestly into
those eyes so full of gentle sweetness, "Who--are--you?"

"Barbara,"--Sue's arms went out again, yearningly--"Barbara, I--am your
mother."

"Mother!"--the cry rang through the Close. The child flung herself
into those waiting arms, clasping Sue with her own. "Oh, mother!
Mother! _Mother_!"

"My baby! My baby!"

Now past the open door of the Church, walking two and two in their
white cottas, came the choir. And their voices, high and clear, sang
that verse of Ikey's song which Sue loved best--

"_O happy harbor of God's Saints!
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In Thee no sorrow can be found,
Nor grief, nor care, nor toil!_"

Before the song was done, Barbara's hat was on, and with
"Lolly-Poppins" and the woolly lamb under an arm; with Sue similarly
burdened with the Kewpie, the new doll, and the duck that could quack,
the two went, hand in hand, across the lawn to that little white door
through which forsaken babies had often come, but through which one
lovingly claimed was now to go. And the little white door opened to
the touch of Sue's hand--and through it, to a new life and a new
happiness; to service sweet beyond words, went a new mother--and with
her, a new-found daughter.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APRON-STRINGS***

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