"I dunno as I'd call her bold, neither," rejoined Silas. "'Rory Lane, she's kept up her head all these years, and I must say she's minded her own business. Everybody knows, these twenty years, she had a baby, and that the baby died; but that's about all anybody ever did know. The baby's dad, if it had one, has hid damned well--the man nor the woman neither don't live in this town that can even guess who he was. But who's this young feller? Some relative o' hern from somewheres, like enough--reckon she must 'a' been goin' down to the train to meet him. Never told nobody, and just like her not to. She sure is close-mouthed. They're going on over towards her place, seems like," he continued. "Say, don't she look proud? Seems like she's glad over something. But why--that's what I want to know--why?" The two persons thus in the public eye of Spring Valley by this time had come again to the corner of the courthouse inclosure, and apparently purposed to pass diagonally through the courthouse yard. Now and again the young man turned in friendly fashion to the onlookers, none of whom he knew, but whom he fancied to be acquaintances of his companion. He himself was altogether a stranger in the town. He felt a chill at the curious stares, the silent half smiles he encountered, but attributed that to bucolic reticence, so shrugged his shoulders and turned to Aurora Lane. Had any at that time heard his speech, they surely must have felt yet more surprise. "Mom!" said he. "Mother! I've got a mother, after all--and such a splendid one! I can't believe it at all--it must all be a dream. To be an orphan all my life--and then to get word that I'm not--that I've a mother, after all--and you! Why, I'd have known you anyhow, I'm sure, if I'd never seen you, even from the picture I had. It was when you were a girl. But you've not changed--you couldn't. And it's you who've been my mother all the time. It's fine to be home with you at last. So this is the town where you have lived--that I've never seen. And here are all your friends?" "Yes, Don," said she, "all I have, pretty much." Aurora Lane's speaking voice was of extraordinary sweetness. "Well, you have lived here all your life." "Yes," she smiled. "And they all know you." "Oh, yes," noncommittally. "It was too bad you had to be away from me, Don, boy. You seem like a stranger to me--I can't realize you are here, that you are my own boy, Dieudonne! I'm afraid of you--I don't know you--and I'm so proud and frightened, so surprised, so _glad_--why, I don't know what to do. But I'd have known you anywhere--I _did_ know you. You're just as I've always dreamed of you--and I'm glad--I'm so very glad!" "Mom! I loved your little picture, but I never knew how much I loved _you_ till now--why--you're my _mother_! My mother! And I've never seen you--I've never known you--till right now. You're a ripper, that's what you are!