Jingle! jingle! jingle! went the door-bell during the course of the supper. And so much had that package been talked about and guessed about that all paused in their eating and drinking, and listened in expectation.
"Please, ma'am," said Katie, coming from answering the ring, "the expressman is at the door. He says he's got a most valuable package for you, and would you please come and receipt for it?"
Mrs. Benson found the expressman standing by the little table in the hallway where Katie had left him, though in the mean time he had gone back to his wagon and brought the package into the house. "Please sign there," he said, pointing to his receipt-book.
"It must be a very small package," thought Mrs. Benson, not seeing any package, but imagining it might still be in the expressman's overcoat pocket.
"I was to say, Mrs. Benson," said the man, "that you must be prepared for a very great, pleasant surprise."
"Oh! I'm prepared to be surprised," answered Mrs. Benson.
"Then please turn and look at the package standing there by the parlor door."
"Oh, Guy! my dear boy!" joyfully called Mrs. Benson, as Guy, with an express tag tied around his arm, rushed into her arms, and clasped her around the neck.
"It's Guy himself," said Bertha, gleefully.
"Hurrah! it's Guy!" called Ben and Jim; and they all instantly left the supper table and hurried to greet him.
But the adventures of package No. 107 could not be quickly told. Of how it was discovered that it might be sent, how it had been directed like a bundle of goods, how it had been receipted for over and over again, how it had travelled all the way in the Pullman cars, how it was given as much care and attention as if it had been a huge nugget of gold, and very, very many more hows and whys.
"Six o'clock! Thank fortune!" exclaimed one of a group of girls in Mr. Hardman's store.
Mildred Lee glanced up with a sigh of relief, moving with quicker fingers at the thought of being so near the end of her day's work. She was a pale pretty girl about sixteen, with soft brown hair, dark eyes, and a something more refined in her air and manner than her associates. Perhaps it was that in her dress there were none of the flimsy attempts at finery which the other girls affected so strongly, or perhaps it was only her quiet, lady-like self-possession which had in it nothing of vulgar reticence or pride; but, in any case, there was a touch of something superior to all lowering influences, and the most flippant sales-woman in "Hardman's" lowered her tone of coarse good-humor, stopped short in any gay recital, when Mildred's pretty face and quiet little figure came in view.
