“I wondered when you would be,” was Laurel’s unsurprised reply.

“How long have you wondered that, Laurel?” Stephen inquired eagerly.

“Oh, ever since I saw you together in the big room at Green Hills, when I came down from upstairs that first time, I felt then that you were meant to be married, only—”

“Yes, only?”

“Only you must have taken a wrong turn way back somewhere—you know how it is—a wrong turn or a detour makes all the journey different sometimes.”

Stephen slipped his arm through Laurel’s too. “Are you glad?” he asked her.

“Oh, ever so glad!” she promptly assured him. “It’s like a book, or a play, coming out the way you hoped it would, or a journey ending where it should, even though there was a wrong turn. What shall I call you, Mrs. Morrison?” she broke off. “I’ve wondered and wondered. Isn’t it funny?” she laughed. “You aren’t Mrs. Morrison any more!”

What a little girl she was, after all, thought Stephen, and how merciful. It had been easier than he feared to tell her that he had become to another woman what he had one day been to her mother. How simply, how serenely, she accepted that which had been so painfully won.

“Let’s call each other by our first names,” lightly Helen suggested.

“Oh, I wonder if we ever could! Your name is so—so special. Mrs. Morrison is like the word ‘America’ to me. It means things. I couldn’t possibly call America anything else.”

“You could call it home, couldn’t you?” said Helen.

5

LATER, PLACING HER hand over Laurel’s, and Laurel turning her palm upward, and interlacing her fingers with Helen’s in impulsive response, Helen said, “There’s more to my story, Laurel.”

With infinite gentleness she explained to Laurel that she was a part of this home now, was a member of this family; they were hers and she was theirs. She must have been talking five minutes before Laurel caught the import of her words.

“You mean,” suddenly she interrupted, “I’m to live here?”

“Yes, here, and at the place at Green Hills. With us—with your father, with Con and Dane and Rick—they’re so happy about it—wherever we are—as one of us, Laurel.”

“I never thought of that.” Laurel gazed wonderingly around the lovely room. This her home? This beautiful place? A family like other girls? A mother and father who lived together? Mrs. Morrison? “Yes, yes,” she gasped, “but what about—what about—”

“What about your mother?” Helen asked for her. “I know, I understand. You shall see your mother often, Laurel.”

“You mean—” she still had a manner as if gasping for air, as if groping for light, for comprehension. “You mean Mother would still live in Boston?”

“That would seem wisest, wouldn’t it?”