"What is that?" exclaimed old Mrs. Bond, as she saw the stage, dimly,
through the pelting rain, plowing through the clayey mud, up the steep
hill toward her door. "Somebody must be coming here, else the driver
would have taken the easier cut to the village," and she pressed her
face closer against the moist window-pane to get a clearer view.
"It is going to stop here, sure as the world," she exclaimed. "Who can
be coming a visiting in such a rain as this? It is not time for old
Cousin Patty, these three months yet."
"Dear heart," she said, as the driver jumped off his box, and opened the
stage-door, "if it isn't Rose, and that sick baby! Dear heart--dear
heart, it is as much as its life is worth. I hope I shall have grace to
forgive that woman, but I don't know, I don't know; who could have
believed it?" and by this time, the baby was handed into her
outstretched arms, and Rose stepped dripping across the threshold.
"Cry, dear--do cry. I am going to cry myself. It is dreadful hard." And
she drew the chairs up to the fire, and gazed by its light into Rose's
brimming eyes and Charley's pale face.
"May God forgive her," she said, at last; "can't you say it, dear?
Try."
Rose answered by pointing to Charley.
"I know it, dear heart; I know it; but you remember the 'crown of
thorns,' and the mocking 'sponge,' and the cruel 'spear,'" said the old
lady, struggling down her own incensed feelings.
"Take Charley now, dear, he is quite warm, while I run and make you a
cup of hot tea," and the old lady piled fresh wood upon the huge
andirons, and drew out her little tea-table, stopping now to wipe her
eyes, now to kiss Rose and the baby, and whispering, "Try, dear, do; it
will make you feel happier; try."
The cheerful warmth of the fire, and Mrs. Bond's motherly kindness,
brought a little color into Rose's pale face, and Charley kicked his
little cold toes out of his frock, and winked his eyes at the crackling
blaze, as if to say,
"Now, this is something like."
After tea, Rose narrated to Mrs. Bond the visit of the old crone to her
attic, and expressed her firm belief that she was Dolly's mother.
This was even worse in Mrs. Bond's eyes than Mrs. Howe's cruelty to
Rose, and not trusting herself to speak, she gave vent to her feelings
by alternately raising her hands and eyes to heaven.
"There will be a sad reckoning-day--a sad reckoning-day, dear," said the
old lady solemnly. "He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor
sleep."