An anthem rolled up from the church choir, chanting out the love of Christ, chanting His crucifixion and death for a dying world.
"Come unto me, come unto me," it sang, and "Come unto me," rose from the lips of the squatter waiting to take the little human thing, with its burden of sickness and death, to Dominie Graves, that he might petition the Holy Ghost to take away its sin.
"Come unto me," again sang the choir. Then silence. Tess leaned nearer the window. Dominie Graves read out the names of the babies to be baptized that day.
A carriage rolled rapidly to the church door, and Deacon Hall, accompanied by his wife, stepped to the pavement. The Deacon held a bundle with long white draperies hanging from it. It was their new baby, with lace upon its frock, going in to receive a blessing at the altar of God. Tess peered down upon the little Dan, and pulled the coarse dress closer about his chin. A violent wish born of the love she had for him came into her heart. Oh, that she had one bit of lace, to make his skin look less blue and the mouth less drawn! The wide eyes were still fixed upon her, immovable and unblinking. Once only had she seen the lids fall slowly downward, to rise again over the unseeing eyes.
"He knows he air a-goin' to church," she muttered lovingly. "I wonder if that air why he air so good.... Mebbe the spirit of his pappy air here."
She heard the names fall from the lips of the clergyman, as he took the infants, one by one, and placed his hand upon them with the water.
"I baptize thee, John Richard," Graves said slowly, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
"Of the Holy Ghost...." He was the Spirit of God Who stood by the children, to take away the sin with which they had been born. Teola had told Tess so. The Holy Ghost would take away the sin of little Dan.
"I baptize thee," broke the silence, time after time, amid the tiny splashes of falling water. The last must have gone up to the altar, for Tess heard the minister telling the fathers and mothers the duty they owed their children.
"I finish my service to-day," said he, "by praying God to bless you all, and calling down the good-will of Heaven upon your children just baptized in His name."