.

.

.
"And now, may I see her--the little daughter ?" The twilight had gathered about them during that quiet hour of reunion, wherein old hurts had been healed, old sins forgiven, and now at last they had come back together out of the past to the recognition of all that yet remained to do.
There came a sound of running footsteps on the stairs outside--light, eager steps, buoyant with youth, that evidently found no hardship in the long ascent from the street level.
"Hark!" The woman paused, her head a little turned to listen.

"Here she comes.

No one else on this floor"-- with a whimsical smile--"could take the last flight of those awful stairs at a run." The door flew open, and the man received an impressionist picture of which the salient features were a mop of black hair, a scarlet jersey, and a pair of abnormally long black legs.
Then the door closed with a bang, and the blur of black and scarlet resolved itself into a thin, eager-faced child of eight, who paused irresolutely upon perceiving a stranger in the room.
"Come here, kiddy," the woman held out her hand.