And now comes the most wonderful part of the story!
Madame Dujardin prepared a bath and said to Marie: "You may have the
first turn in the tub because you're a girl. In America the girls have
the best of everything", she laughed at Jan, as she spoke. "I will help
you undress. Jan, you may get ready and wait for your turn in your own
room." She unbuttoned Marie's dress, slipped off her clothes, and held
up the gay little wrapper for her to put her arms into, and just then
she noticed the locket on her neck. "We'll take this off, too," she
said, beginning to unclasp it.
But Marie clung to it with both hands. "No, no," she cried. "Mother
said I was never, never to take it off. It has her picture in it."
"May I see it, dear?" asked Madame Dujardin. "I should like to know
what your mother looks like." Marie nestled close to her, and Madame
Dujardin opened the locket.
For a moment she gazed at the picture in complete silence, her eyes
staring at it like two blue lights. Then she burst into a wild fit of
weeping, and cried out, "Leonie! Leonie! It is not possible! My own
sister's children!" She clasped the bewildered Marie in her arms and
kissed her over and over again. She ran to the door and brought in Jan
and kissed him; and then she called her husband. When he came in and
saw her with her arms around both children at once, holding the locket
in her hands, and laughing and crying both together, he, too, was
bewildered.
"What in the world is the matter, Julie?" he cried.
For answer, she pointed to the face in the locket. "Leonie! Leonie!"
she cried. "They are my own sister's children! Surely the hand of God
is in this!"
Her husband looked at the locket. "So it is! So it is!" he said in
astonishment. "I thought at first you had gone crazy."
"See!" cried his wife. "It's her wedding-gown, and afterward she gave
me those very beads she has around her neck! I have them yet!" She
rushed from the room and returned in a moment with the beads in her
hand.
Meanwhile Jan and Marie had stood still, too astonished to do more than
stare from one amazed and excited face to the other, as their new
father and mother gazed, first at them, and then at the locket, and
last at the beads, scarcely daring to believe the testimony of their
own eyes. "To think," cried Madame Dujardin at last, "that I should not
have known! But there are many Van Hoves in Belgium, and it never
occurred to me that they could be my own flesh and blood. It is years
since I have heard from Leonie. In fact, I hardly knew she had any
children, our lives have been so different. Oh, it is all my fault,"
she cried, weeping again. "But if I have neglected her, I will make it
up to her children! It may be, oh, it is just possible that she is
still alive, and that she may yet write to me after all these years!
Sorrow sometimes bridges wide streams!"
Then she turned more quietly to the children.
"You see, dears," she said, "I left Belgium many years ago, and came
with your uncle to this country. We were poor when we came, but your
uncle has prospered as one can in America. At first Leonie and I wrote
regularly to each other. Then she grew more and more busy, and we
seemed to have no ties in common, so that at last we lost sight of each
other altogether." She opened her arms to Marie and Jan as she spoke,
and held them for some time in a close embrace.
Finally she lifted her head and laughed. "This will never do!" she
exclaimed. "You must have your baths, even if you are my own dear niece
and nephew. The water must be perfectly cold by this time!"
She went into the bathroom, turned on more hot water, and popped Marie
into the tub. In half an hour both children had said their prayers and
were tucked away for the night in their clean white beds.
Wonderful days followed for Jan and Marie. They began to go to school;
they had pretty clothes and many toys, and began to make friends among
the little American children of the neighborhood. But in the midst of
these new joys they did not forget their mother, still looking for
them, or their father, now fighting, as they supposed, in the cruel
trenches of Belgium. But at last there came a day when Aunt Julie
received a letter with a foreign postmark. She opened it, with
trembling fingers, and when she saw that it began, "My dear Sister
Julie," she wept so for joy that she could not see to read it, and her
husband had to read it for her.
This was the letter:
You will perhaps wonder at hearing from me after the long
years of silence that have passed, but I have never
doubted the goodness of your heart, my Julie, nor your
love for your poor Leonie, even though our paths in life
have led such different ways. And now I must tell you of
the sorrows which have broken my heart. Georges was
obliged to go into the army at a moment's notice when the
war broke out. A few days later the Germans swept through
Meer, driving the people before them like chaff before
the wind. As our house was on the edge of the village, I
was the first to see them coming. I hid the children in
the vegetable cellar, but before I could get to a hiding-place
for myself, they swept over the town, driving every
man, woman, and child before them. To turn back then was
impossible, and it was only after weeks of hardship and
danger that I at last succeeded in struggling through the
territory occupied by Germans to the empty city of
Malines, and the deserted village where we had been so
happy! On the kitchen door of our home I found a paper
pinned. On it was printed, "Dear Mother--We have gone to
Malines to find you--Jan and Marie." Since then I have
searched every place where there seemed any possibility
of my finding my dear children, but no trace of them can
I find. Then, through friends in Antwerp, I learned that
Georges had been wounded and was in a hospital there and
I went at once to find him. He had lost an arm in the
fighting before Antwerp and was removed to Holland after
the siege began. Here we have remained since, still
hoping God would hear our prayers and give us news of our
dear children. It would even be a comfort to know surely
of their death, and if I could know that they were alive
and well, I think I should die of joy. Georges can fight
no more; our home is lost; we are beggars until this war
is over and our country once more restored to us. I am
now at work in a factory, earning what keeps body and
soul together. Georges must soon leave the hospital,
then, God knows what may befall us. How I wish we had
been wise like you, my Julie, and your Paul, and that we
had gone, with you to America years ago! I might then
have my children with me in comfort. If you get this
letter, write to your heart-broken