As it was, bound together as they were by only a mutual recognition, their joy in each other knew no bounds.

To Masie he was a refuge, some one who understood every thought before she had uttered it; to O'Day she was a never-ending and warming delight.
And so this man of forty-five folded his arms about this child of ten, and held her close, the opening chalice of her budding girlhood widening hourly at his touch--a sight to be reverenced by every man and never to be forgotten by one privileged to behold it.
And with the intimacy which almost against his will held him to the little shop, there stole into his life a certain content.

Springs long dried in his own nature bubbled again.

He felt the sudden, refreshing sense of those who, after pent-up suffering, find the quickening of new life within.
Mike noticed the change in the cheery greetings and in the passages of Irish wit with which the new clerk welcomed him whenever he appeared in the store, and so did Kling, and even the two Dutchies when Felix would drop into the cellar searching for what was still good enough to be made over new.

And so did Kitty and John and all at their home.
Masie alone noticed nothing.