CHAPTER XXVII.
"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.