Prince bounded wildly to meet her. He leaped and barked. A cry sounded from a room beyond. Miss Amanda and Uncle Joe rushed in. Sleepily, her face flushed, rubbing her blue eyes wide open, Carolyn May sat up in bed. “Oh, Uncle Joe! Oh, Miss Amanda!” she said. “I—I was just dreaming my own papa and mamma had come home and found me here.” “My dear! My _dear_!” sobbed Amanda Parlow, dropping to her knees beside the bed. “You’re a great young one!” growled Uncle Joe, blowing his nose suspiciously. “You’ve nigh about scared ev’rybody to death. Your Aunty Rose is almost crazy.” “Oh—I’m—sorry,” stammered Carolyn May. “But—you—see—Uncle Joe! you and Miss Amanda are going to be happy now. Aunty Rose says ‘two is comp’ny.’ So you wouldn’t have room for me.” “Bless me!” gasped the hardware dealer. “What do you know about this child’s feeling that way, Mandy?” “I am afraid we have been selfish, Joe,” the woman said, sighing. “And that is something that Carolyn May has never been in her life!” “I dunno—I dunno,” said Uncle Joe ruefully, and looking at the little, flowerlike face of the child. “How about Aunty Rose? How d’you s’pose she feels about Hannah’s Car’lyn running away?” “Oh!” ejaculated the little girl. “It may be that ‘two’s company and three’s a crowd,’ but you and Aunty Rose would be two likewise, wouldn’t you, Car’lyn May?” “I—I never thought of that, Uncle Joe,” the child whispered. “Why, your running away from The Corners this way is like to make both Mandy and me unhappy, as well as Aunty Rose. I—I don’t b’lieve Mandy could get married at all if she didn’t have a little girl like you to carry flowers and hold up her train. How about it, Mandy?” “That is quite true, Carolyn May,” declared Miss Amanda, hugging the soft little body of the child tightly again. “Why, I—I——” Carolyn May was, for once, beyond verbal expression. Besides, there was a noise in the outer hall and on the stairway. The door had been left open by the surprised janitor. A burst of voices came into the apartment. Uncle Joe turned wonderingly. Miss Amanda stood up. Carolyn May flew out of bed with a shriek that startled them both. “My papa! My mamma! I hear them! They’re not drownd-ed! God didn’t let ’em be lost at sea!” She was out of the room in her nightgown, pattering in bare feet over the floor. A brown man, with a beard and twinkling blue eyes, caught her up in strong arms and hugged her swiftly—safely—to his breast. “Snuggy!” he said chokingly. “Papa’s Snuggy!” “My baby! My baby!” cried the woman at whom Joseph Stagg was staring as though he believed her to be the ghost of his lost sister Hannah. It was several hours later before there was a really sane thing said or a sane thing done in that little Harlem flat. “It’s like a lovely fairy story!” cried Carolyn May. “Only it’s better than a fairy story—it’s _real_!” “Yes, yes, it’s real, thank God!” murmured the happy mother.