The shadows had never been further away. Even old Aunt Sheba was lulled into security. Into her bereaved heart, as into the hearts of all the others, the baby crept; and she grew so bewitching with her winsome ways, so absorbing in her many little wants and her need of watching, as with the dawning spirit of curiosity she sought to explore for herself what was beyond the cradle and the door, that Aunt Sheba, with the doting mother, thought of Hilda during all waking hours and dreamed of her in sleep.
At last the inconstant New England spring passed away, and June came with its ever-new heritage of beauty. The baby's birthday was to be the grand fete of the year, and the little creature seemed to enter into the spirit of the occasion. She could now call her parents and grandparents by name, and talk to them in her pretty though senseless jargon, which was to them more precious than the wisdom of Solomon.
It was a day of roses and rose-colors. Roses banked the mantelpieces, wreathed the cradle, crowned the table at which Hilda sat in state in her high chair, a fairy form in gossamer laces, with dark eyes—Grace's eyes—that danced with the unrestrained delight of a child.
"She looks just like my little Grace of long, long years ago," said the major, with wistful eyes; "and yet, Colonel, it seems but yesterday that your wife was the image of that laughing little witch yonder."
"Well, I can believe," admitted Grandma Mayburn, "that Grace was as pretty—a tremendous compliment to you, Grace—but there never was and never will be another baby as pretty and cunning as our Hilda."
The good old lady never spoke of the child as Grace's baby. It was always "ours." In Graham, Grace, and especially Hilda, she had her children about her, and the mother-need in her heart was satisfied.
"Yes, Hilda darling," said the colonel, with fond eyes, "you have begun well. You could not please me more than by looking like your mother; the next thing is to grow like her."
"Poor blind papa, with the perpetual glamour on his eyes! He will never see his old white-haired wife as she is."
He looked at her almost perfect features with the bloom of health upon them, into her dark eyes with their depths of motherly pride and joy, at her snowy neck and ivory arms bare to the summer heat, and longest at the wavy silver of her hair, that crowned her beauty with an almost supernatural charm.
"Don't I see you as you are, Grace?" he said. "Well, I am often spellbound by what I do see. If Hilda becomes like you, excepting your sorrows, my dearest wish in her behalf will be fulfilled."