KATY GOES TO SILVERTON.
A summer day in Silverton--a soft, bright August day, when the early
rareripes by the well were turning their red cheeks to the sun, and the
flowers in the garden were lifting their heads proudly and nodding to
each other as if they knew the secret which made that day so bright
above all others. Old Whitey, by the hitching post, was munching at his
oats and glancing occasionally at the covered buggy standing on the
greensward, fresh and clean as water from the pond could make it; the
harness, new, not mended, lying upon a rock, where Katy used to feed the
sheep with salt, and the whip standing upright in its socket, all
waiting for the deacon, donning his best suit of clothes, even to a
stiff shirt collar which almost cut his ears, his face shining with
anticipations which he knew would be realized. Katy was really coming
home, and in proof thereof there were behind the house and barn piles of
rubbish, lath and plaster, moldy paper and broken bricks, the tokens and
remains of the repairing process, which for so long a time had made the
farmhouse a scene of dire confusion, driving its inmates nearly
distracted, except when they remembered for whose sake they endured so
much, inhaling clouds of lime, stepping over heaps of mortar, tearing
their dress skirts on sundry nails projecting from every conceivable
quarter, and wondering the while if the masons ever would finish or the
carpenters be gone.
As a condition on which Katy might be permitted to come home, Wilford
had stipulated an improvement in the interior arrangement of the house,
offering to bear the expense even to the furnishing of the rooms. To
this the family demurred at first, not liking Wilford's dictatorial
manner, nor his insinuation that their home was not good enough for
his wife, Mrs. Katy Cameron. But Helen turned the tide, appreciating
Wilford's feelings better than the others could do, and urging a
compliance with his request.
"Anything to get Katy home," she said, and so the chimney was torn away,
a window was put here and an addition made there, until the house was
really improved with its pleasant, modern parlor and the large airy
bedroom, with bathing-room attached, the whole the idea of Wilford, who
graciously deigned to come out once or twice from New London, where he
was spending a few weeks, to superintend the work and suggest how it
should be done.
The furniture, too, which he sent on from New York, was perfect in its
kind, not elegant like Katy's, but well adapted to the rooms it was to
adorn, and suitable in every respect. Helen enjoyed the settling very
much, and when it was finished it was hard telling which was the more
pleased, she or good Aunt Betsy, who, having confessed in a general kind
of way at a sewing society that she did go to a playhouse, and was not
so very sorry either, except as the example might do harm, had nothing
on her conscience now, nothing to fear from New York, and was
proportionately happy. At least she would have been if Morris had not
seemed so off, as she expressed it, and evincing no pleasure at Katy's
expected visit. He had been polite to Wilford, had kept him at Linwood,
taking him to and from the depot, but even Wilford had thought him
changed, telling Katy how very sober and grave he had become, rarely
smiling, and not seeming to care to talk unless it were about his
profession or on some religious topic. And Morris was greatly changed.
The wound which in most hearts would have healed by this time had grown
deeper with each succeeding year, while from all he heard he felt sure
that Katy's marriage was a sad mistake, wishing sometimes that he had
spoken, and so perhaps have saved her from the life in which she could
not be wholly free. "She would be happier with me," he had said, with a
sad smile to Helen, when once she told him of some things which she had
not mentioned elsewhere, and there were great tears in Morris' eyes,
tears of which he was not ashamed when Helen spoke of Katy's distress,
and the look which crept into her face when baby was taken away. When
Morris first heard of the baby he had hoped he might love Katy less;
that she would seem to him as more a wife and less a girl, but she did
not, and there were times when the silent doctor, living alone at
Linwood, felt that his grief was too great to bear. But the deep, dark
waters were always forded safely, and Morris' faith in God prevailed, so
that only a dull, heavy pain remained, with the consciousness that it
was no sin to remember Katy as she was remembered now. Oh, how he had
longed to see her, and yet how he had dreaded it, lest poor weak human
flesh should prove inadequate to the sight. But she was coming home;
Providence had ordered that and he accepted it, looking eagerly for the
time when he should see her again, but repressing his eagerness, so that
not even Helen suspected how impatient he was for the day of her return.
Four weeks she had been at the Pequot House in New London, occupying a
little cottage and luxuriating in the joy of having her child with her
almost every day. Country air and country nursing had wrought wonders in
the baby, which had grown so beautiful and bright that it was no longer
in Wilford's way save as it took too much of Katy's time, and made her
careless for the gay crowd at the hotel.
Marian was working at her trade, and never came to the hotel except one
day when Wilford was in New York, but that day sufficed for Katy to know
that after herself it was Marian whom baby loved the best--Marian, who
cared for it even more than Mrs. Hubbell. And Katy was glad to have it
so, especially after Wilford and his mother decided that she must leave
the child in New London while she made the visit to Silverton.
Wilford did not like her taking so much care of it as she was inclined
to do. It had grown too heavy for her to lift; it was better with Mrs.
Hubbell, he said, and so to the inmates of the farmhouse Katy wrote that
baby was not coming.
They were bitterly disappointed, for Katy's baby had been anticipated
quite as much as Katy herself, Aunt Betsy bringing from the woodshed
chamber a cradle which nearly forty years before had rocked the deacon's
only child, the little boy, who died just as he had learned to lisp his
mother's name. As a momento of those days the cradle had been kept, Katy
using it sometimes for her kittens and her dolls, until she grew too old
for that, when it was put away beneath the eaves whence Aunt Betsy
dragged it, scouring it with soap and sand, until it was white as snow.
But it would not be needed, and with a sigh the old lady carried it
back, thinking "things had come to a pretty pass when a woman who could
dance and carouse till twelve o'clock at night was too weakly to take
care of her child," and feeling a very little awe of Katy who must have
grown so fine a lady.
But all this passed away as the time drew near when Katy was to come,
and no one seemed happier than Aunt Betsy on the morning when Whitey was
eating his oats, and the carriage stood on the greensward. The sky above
and the earth beneath were much as they were that other day when they
were expecting Katy, but Helen's face was not as bright, or her steps as
buoyant. She could not forget who was there one year ago, and all the
morning painful memories had been tugging at her heart as she remembered
the past, and wondered at the gloomy silence which Mark Ray had
maintained toward her ever since the day when the Seventh Regiment left
New York, followed by so many prayers and tears. He had returned, she
knew, but neither from his mother nor himself had there ever come a word
or message for her, while Bell Cameron, who wrote to her occasionally,
had spoken of his attentions to Juno as becoming more pointed than ever.
"I have strong hopes that in time Juno will be quite a woman," Bell
added. "She is not so proud and sarcastic as she used to be, and all the
while Mark was gone she seemed very much depressed, so that I began to
believe she really liked him. You would hardly recognize her in her new
phase, she acts so humble like, as if she were constantly asking
forgiveness; and this, you know, is something novel for her."
After this letter Helen sat herself resolutely at work to forget all
that had ever passed between herself and Mark, succeeding so well that
Silverton and its duties ceased to be very irksome, until the
anniversary of the morning when he had twined the lily in her hair, and
looked such fancies in her heart. It was well for her that too many
things were claiming her attention to allow of solitary regrets.
Katy's room was to be arranged, Katy's "box bed," as Aunt Betsy called
it, to be fixed, flowers to be gathered for the parlor and vegetables
for the dinner, so that her hands were full, up to the moment when Uncle
Ephraim drove away from the door, setting old Whitey into a canter,
which, by the time the "race" was reached, had become a rapid trot, the
old man holding up his reins and looking proudly at the oat-fed animal,
speeding along so fast.
He did not have long to wait this time, for the train came rolling
across the meadow, and while his head was turned toward the car where he
fancied she might be, a pair of arms were thrown impetuously around his
neck, and a little figure, standing on tiptoe, almost pulled him down in
its attempts to kiss him.
"Uncle Eph! oh, Uncle Eph, I've come! I'm here," a young voice cried;
but the words the deacon would have spoken were smothered by the kisses
which pressed upon his lips, kisses which only came to an end when a
voice said, rather reprovingly: "There, Katy, that will do. You have
almost strangled him."
Wilford had not been expected, and the expression of the deacon's face
was not a very cordial greeting to the young man who hastened to explain
that he should only stop till the next train, and then go on to Boston.
In his presence the deacon was not quite natural, but he lifted in his
arms his "little Katy-did," looking straight into her face, where there
were as yet no real lines of care, only shadows, which told that in some
respects she was not the same Katy he had parted with two years before.
There was a good deal of the city about her dress and style, and the
deacon felt a little overawed at first; but this wore off as on their
way to the farmhouse, she, sitting partly in his lap and partly in her
husband's, kept one hand upon his neck, her snowy fingers occasionally
playing with his silvery hair, while she looked at him with her loving
old smile, and asked questions about the people he supposed she had
forgotten, nodding to everybody she met, whether she knew them or not,
and at last, as the old house came in sight, hiding her face in a gush
of happy tears upon his neck, not Wilford's. That gentleman was watching
her in silence, wishing she were less impulsive, and wondering at the
strong home-love he could not understand. To him there was nothing
pleasant in that low, humble farmhouse, or in the rocks and hills which
overshadowed it; while, with the exception of Helen, the women gathered
at the door as they came up were very distasteful to him. But with Katy
it was different. They were her rocks, her hills, her woods, and more
than all, they were her folks into whose arms she threw herself with an
impetuous rush, scarcely waiting for old Whitey to stop, but with one
leap clearing the wheel and springing first to the embrace of her
mother. It was a joyful meeting, and when the first excitement was over
Katy inspected the improvements, approving all, and thanking Wilford for
having done so much for her comfort.
"I shall sleep so nicely here," she said, tossing her hat into Helen's
lap, and lying down at once upon the bed it had taken so long to make.
"Yes, I shall rest so nicely, knowing I can wear my wrapper all day
long. Don't look so horrified, Wilford," she added, as she caught his
eye. "I shall dress me sometimes; but you don't know what a luxury it
is to feel that I need not unless I like."
"Didn't you rest at New London?" Helen asked, when Wilford had left the
room.
"Yes, some," Katy replied; "but there were dances every night, or sails
upon the bay, and I had to go, for many of our friends were there, and
Wilford was not willing for me to be quiet."
This, then, was the reason why Katy came home so weary and pale, and
craving so much the rest she had not had in more than two years. But she
would get it now, and before the first dinner was eaten some of her old
color came stealing back to her cheeks, and her eyes began to dance just
as they used to do, while her merry voice rang out in silvery peals at
Aunt Betsy's quaint remarks, which struck her so forcibly from not
having heard them for so long a tune. A hit of a lecture Wilford deemed
it his duty to give her when after dinner they sat together alone for
half an hour. "She must restrain herself. Surely she was old enough
to be more womanly, and she would tire herself out with her nervous
restlessness, besides giving the people a bad opinion of Mrs. Wilford
Cameron."
To this Katy listened quietly, breathing freer when it was over, and
breathing freer still when Wilford was gone, even though her tears did
fall as she watched him out of sight, and knew it would be at least four
weeks before she saw him again. To the entire family his departure
brought relief; but they were not prepared for the change it produced in
Katy; who, freed from all restraint, came back so soon to what she was
when a young, careless girl she sat upon the doorsteps and curled the
dandelion stalks. She did not do this now, for there were none to curl;
but she strung upon a thread the delicate petals of the phlox growing by
the door, and then bound it as a crown about the head of her mother, who
could not yet quite recognize her Katy in the elegant Mrs. Wilford
Cameron, with rustling silk, and diamonds flashing on her hands every
time they moved. But when she saw her racing with the old brown goat and
its little kid out in the apple orchard, her head uncovered, and her
bright curls blowing about her face, the feeling disappeared, and she
felt that Katy had indeed come back again.
And where all the while was Morris? Were his patients so numerous that
he could not find time to call upon his cousin? Katy had inquired for
him immediately after her arrival, but in her excitement she had
forgotten him again, until Wilford was gone and tea was over, when, just
as she had done on the day of her return from Canandaigua, she took her
hat and started on the well-worn path toward Linwood. She was not going
there, she said, she only wanted to try the road and see if it had
changed since she used to go that way to gather butternuts in the autumn
or berries in the summer. Airily she tripped along, her light plaid silk
gleaming through the deep green of the trees and revealing her coming to
the tired man sitting upon a little rustic seat, beneath a chestnut
tree, where he once had sat with Katy, and extracted a cruel sliver from
her hand, kissing the place to make it well as she told him to. She was
a child then, a little girl of twelve, and he was twenty, but the sight
of her pure face lifted confidingly to his had stirred his heart as no
other face had stirred it since, making him look forward to a time when
the hand he kissed would be his own, and his the fairy form he watched
so carefully as it expanded day by day into the perfect woman. He was
thinking of that time now, and how different it had all turned out, when
he heard the bounding step and saw her coming toward him, swinging her
hat in childish abandon, and warbling a song she had learned from him.
"Morris, oh, Morris!" she cried, as she ran eagerly forward; "I am so
glad to see you. It seems so nice to be with you once more here in the
dear old woods. Don't get up--please don't get up," she continued, as he
started to rise.
She was standing before him, a hand on either side of his face, into
which she was looking quite as wistfully as he was regarding her.
Something she missed in his manner, something which troubled her; and
thinking she knew what it was, she said to him: "Why don't you kiss me,
Morris? You used to. Ain't you glad to see me?"
"Yes, very glad," he answered, and drawing her down to the bench beside
him, he kissed her twice, but so gravely, so quietly, that Katy was not
satisfied at all, and tears gathered in her eyes as she tried to think
what it was ailed Morris.
He was very thin, and there were a few white hairs about his temples, so
that, though four years younger than her husband, he seemed to her much
older, quite grandfatherly in fact, and this accounted for the liberties
she took, asking what was the matter, and trying to make him like her
again, by assuring him that she was not as vain and foolish as he must
suppose from what Helen had probably told him of her life since leaving
Silverton.
"I do not like it at all," she said. "I am in it, and must conform; but,
oh Morris! you don't know how much happier I should be if Wilford were
just like you, and lived at Linwood instead of New York. I should be so
happy here with baby all the time."
It was well she spoke that name, for Morris, listening to her as she
charged him with indifference, could not have borne much more; but the
mention of her child had a strange power over him, of quieting him at
once, so that he could calmly tell her that she was the same to him that
she had always been, while with his next breath he asked: "Where is your
baby, Katy?" adding with a smile: "I can remember when you were a baby,
and I held you in my arms."
"Can you really?" Katy said; and as if that remembrance made him older
than the hills, she nestled her curly head against his shoulder, while
she told him of her bright-eyed darling, and as she talked the
mother-love which spread itself over her girlish face made it more
beautiful than anything Morris had ever seen.
"Surely an angel's countenance cannot be fairer, purer than hers," he
thought, listening while she talked of the only thing which had a power
to separate her from him, making her seem as a friend, or at most as a
beloved sister.
A long time they talked together, and the sun was setting ere Morris
rose, suggesting that she go home, as the night dew would soon be
falling.
"And you are not as strong as you once were," he added, pulling her
shawl around her shoulders with careful solicitude, and thinking how
slender she had become.
From the back parlor Helen saw them coming up the path, detecting the
changed expression of Morris' face, and feeling a pang of fear when as
he left them after nine o'clock she heard her mother say that he had not
appeared so natural since Katy went away as he had done that night.
Knowing what she did, Helen trembled for Morris, with this terrible
temptation before him, and Morris trembled for himself as he went back
the lonely path, and stopped again beneath the chestnut tree where he
had so lately sat with Katy. There was a great fear at his heart, and it
found utterance in words as kneeling by the rustic bench with only the
lonely night around him and the green boughs overhead, he asked that he
might be kept from sin, both in thought and deed, and be to Katy Cameron
just what she took him for, her friend and elder brother. And God, who
knew the sincerity of the heart thus pleading before him, heard and
answered the prayer, so that after that first night of trial Morris
could look on Katy without a wish that she were otherwise than Wilford
Cameron's wife and the mother of his child. He was happier because of
her being at the farmhouse, though he did not go there one-half as often
as she came to him. She seemed to prefer Linwood to the farmhouse,
staying there hours, both when he was at home and when he was away,
strolling through his garden, or sitting quietly in the pleasant
summer-house which looked out upon the pond.
Those September days were happy ones to Katy, who, freed from all
restraint, became a child again--a petted, spoiled child, whom every one
caressed and suffered to have her way. To Uncle Ephraim it was as if
some bright angel had suddenly dropped into his path, flooding it with
sunshine, and making him so glad to have back his "Katy-did," who went
with him to the fields, waiting patiently till his work was done, and
telling him of all the wondrous things she saw abroad, but speaking
little of her city life. That was something she did not care to talk
about, and but for Wilford's letters, and the frequent mention of baby,
the deacon could easily have imagined that Katy had never left him. But
these were barriers between the old life and the present, these were the
insignia of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, who was watched and envied by the
curious Silvertonians, and pronounced charming by them all. Still there
was one drawback to Katy's happiness. She missed her child, mourning for
it so much that her family, quite as anxious as herself to see it,
suggested her sending for it. It would surely take no harm with them,
and Marian would come with it. To this plan Katy listened more willingly
from the fact that Wilford had gone West, and the greater the distance
between them the more she dared to do. And so Marian Hazelton was one
day startled at the sudden appearance at the cottage of Katy, who had
come to take her and baby to Silverton.
There was no resisting the vehemence of Katy's arguments, and before the
next day's sunsetting, the farmhouse, usually so quiet and orderly, had
been turned into one general nursery, where Baby Cameron reigned
supreme, screaming with delight at the tinware which Aunt Betsy brought
out from the cake cutter to the dipper, the little creature beating a
noisy tattoo upon the latter with an iron spoon, and then for diversion
burying its fat dimpled hands in Uncle Ephraim's long white hair, for
the old man went down upon all fours to do his great-grand niece homage.
That night Morris came up, stopping suddenly as a loud baby laugh
reached him, even across the orchard, and leaning for a moment against
the wall, while he tried to prepare himself for the shock it would be to
see Katy's child, and hold it in his arms, as he knew he must, or the
mother be aggrieved.
He had supposed it was pretty, but he was not prepared for the beautiful
little cherub which in its short white dress, with its soft curls of
golden brown clustering about its head, stood holding to a chair,
pushing it occasionally, and venturing now and then to take a step,
while its infantile laugh mingled with the screams of its delighted
auditors, watching it with so much interest.
There was one great, bitter, burning pang, a blur before his eyes, and
then, folding his arms composedly upon the window sill, Dr. Grant stood
looking in upon the occupants of the room, whistling at last to baby, as
he was accustomed to whistle to the children of his patients.
"Oh, Morris," Katy cried, "baby can almost walk, Marian has taken so
much pains, and she can say 'papa.' Isn't she a beauty?"
Baby had turned her head by this time, her ear caught by the whistle and
her eye arrested by something in Morris which fascinated her gaze.
Perhaps she thought of Wilford, of whom she had been very fond, for she
pushed her chair toward him and then held up her fat, creasy arms for
him to take her. Morris was fond of children and took the infant at
once, strained it to his bosom with a passionate caress, which seemed to
have in it something of the love he bore the mother, who went off into
ecstasies of joy when baby, attacking Morris' hair and patting softly
his cheek, tried to kiss him as it had been taught by Marian. Never was
mother prouder, happier than Katy during the first few days succeeding
baby's arrival, while the family seemed to tread on air, so swiftly the
time went by with that active little life in their midst, stirring them
up so constantly, putting to rout all their rules of order and keeping
their house in a state of delightful confusion.
It was wonderful how rapidly the child improved with so many teachers,
learning to lisp its mother's name and taught by her attempting to say
"Doctor." From the very first the child took to Morris, crying after him
whenever he went away, and hailing his arrival with a crow of joy and an
eager attempt to reach him.
"It was altogether too forward for this world," Aunt Betsy often said,
shaking her head ominously, but not really meaning what she predicted,
even when for a few days it did not seem as bright as usual, but lay
quietly in Katy's lap, a blue look about the mouth and a flush upon its
cheeks, which neither Morris nor Marian liked.
More accustomed to children than the other members of the family, they
both watched it closely, Morris coming over twice one day, and the last
time he came regarding Katy with a look as if he would fain ward off
from her some evil-which he feared.
"What is it, Morris?" she asked. "Is baby going to be very sick?" and a
great crushing fear came upon her as she waited for his answer.
"I hope not," he said; "I cannot tell as yet; the symptoms are like
cholera infantum, of which I have several cases, but if taken in time
I apprehend no danger."
There was a low shriek and baby opened its heavy lids and moaned, while
Helen came at once to Katy, holding her hand upon her heart as if the
pain had entered there. To Marian it was no news, for ever since the
early morning she had suspected the nature of the disease stealing over
the little child, so suddenly stricken down, and looking by the
lamplight so pale and sick. All night the light burned in the farmhouse,
where there were anxious, troubled faces, Katy bending constantly over
her darling, and even amid her terrible anxiety dreading Wilford's
displeasure when he should hear what she had done and its possible
result. She did not believe as yet that her child would die; but she
suffered acutely, watching for the early dawn when Morris had said he
would be there, and when at last he came, begging of him to stay, to
leave his other patients and care only for baby.
"Would that be right?" Morris asked, and Katy blushed for her
selfishness when she heard how many were sick and dying around them. "I
will spend every leisure moment here," he said, leaving his directions
with Marian and then hurrying away without a word of hope for the child,
growing worse so fast that when the night shut down again it lay upon a
pillow, its blue eyes closed and its head thrown back, while its sad
moanings could only be hushed by carrying it in one's arms about the
room, a task which Katy could not do.
She had tried it once, refusing all their offers with the reply: "Baby
is mine and shall I not carry her?"
But the feeble strength gave out, the limbs began to totter, and
staggering backward she cried: "Somebody must take her."
It was Marian who went forward, Marian, whose face was a puzzle as she
took the infant in her stronger arms, her stony eyes, which had not wept
as yet, fastening themselves upon the face of Wilford Cameron's child
with a look which seemed to say: "Retribution, retribution."
But only when she remembered the father, now so proud of his daughter,
was that word in her heart. She could not harbor it when she glanced at
the mother, and her lips moved in earnest prayer that, if possible, God
would not leave her so desolate. An hour later and Morris came,
relieving Marian of her burden which he carried in his own arms, while
he strove to comfort Katy, who, crouching by the empty crib, was sitting
motionless in a kind of dumb despair, all hope crushed out by his answer
to her entreaties that he would tell her the truth, keeping nothing
back.
"I think your baby will die," he had said to her very gently, pausing a
moment in awe of the white face, whose expression terrified and shocked
him, it was so full of agony.
Bowing her head upon her hands, poor Katy whispered sadly: "God must not
take my baby. Oh, Morris, please pray that he will not. He will hear and
answer you, while I have been so bad I cannot pray. But I'm not going to
be bad again. If he will let me keep my darling I will begin a new life.
I will try to serve him. Dear Lord, hear and answer, and not let baby
die."
She was praying herself now, and Morris' broad chest heaved as he
glanced at her kneeling figure, and then at the death-like face upon
the pillow, with the pinched look about the nose and lips, which to his
practiced eye was a harbinger of death.
"Its father should be here," he thought, and when Katy lifted up her
head again he asked if she was sure her husband had not yet returned
from Minnesota.
"Yes, sure--that is, I think he has not," was Katy's answer, a chill
creeping over her at the thought of meeting Wilford, and giving him his
daughter dead.
"I shall telegraph in the morning at all events," Morris continued,
"and if he is not in New York, it will be forwarded."
"Yes, that will be best," was the reply, spoken so mournfully that
Morris stopped in front of Katy, trying to reason with her.
But Katy would not listen, only answering to him that he did not know,
he could not feel, he never had been tried.
"Perhaps not," Morris said; "but Heaven is my witness, Katy, that if I
could save you this pain by giving up my life for baby's, I would do it
willingly; but God does not give us our choice. He knoweth what is best,
and baby is better with Him than us."
For a moment Katy was silent, then, as a new idea took possession of her
mind, she sprang to Morris' side and seizing his arm, demanded: "Can an
unbaptized child be saved?"
"We nowhere read that baptism is a saving ordinance," was Morris'
answer; while Katy continued: "But do you believe they will be saved?"
"Yes, I do," was the decided response, which, however, did not ease
Katy's mind, and she moaned on: "A child of heathen parents may, but I
knew better, I knew it was my duty to give the child to God, and for a
foolish fancy withheld the gift until it is too late, and God will take
it without the mark upon its forehead, the water on its brow. Oh, baby,
baby, if she should be lost--no name, no mark, no baptismal sign."
"Not water, but the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin," Morris said,
"and as sure as he died so sure this little one is safe. Besides that,
there may be time for the baptism yet--that is, to-morrow. Baby will not
die to-night, and if you like, it still shall have a name."
Eagerly Katy seized upon that idea, thinking more of the sign, the
water, than the name, which scarcely occupied her thoughts at all. It
did not matter what the child was called, so that it became one of the
little ones in glory, and with a calmer, quieter demeanor than she had
shown that day she saw Morris depart at a late hour; and then turning to
the child which Uncle Ephraim now was holding, kissed it lovingly,
whispering as she did so: "Baby shall be baptized--baby shall have the
sign."