Hark! the herald angels sing!
As she came to the last line, "God and sinners reconciled," Rhoda's lips moved, as if she was repeating the words to herself, and her white eyelids slowly opened.
"Not to me!" she murmured.
"Oh! yes, yes, my darling!" cried Aunt Priscilla, falling on her knees—"you and me are reconciled, and God 'ill be reconciled to us both. We are both sinners; but He'll forgive both you and me."
"And my baby," whispered Rhoda again, slowly moving one of her wasted arms to put it round him, and gazing mournfully into her aunt's face.
"I'll take care of him," she answered; "God has sent him and Joan to me, and I'll take care of them for His sake. I took care of you for my own sake, Rhoda."
There was a faint smile on Rhoda's face; and her eyelids closed again, as if she was too weak to keep them open longer. By-and-by there came into the quiet room the sound of distant voices, and Aunt Priscilla crept noiselessly downstairs and across the fold to the gate, to tell Nathan what had happened and to bring them all into the house quietly.
That New Year's Day was as strangely happy a day to Joan as the Christmas Day before it had been. She never left the room where Rhoda was lying; for Rhoda could not bear her to go out of sight, and only seemed content while she could watch her nursing the baby, in her old-fashioned, motherly manner. As Joan sat on a low rocking-chair, lulling him to sleep with snatches of hymns, and soothing him tenderly if he began to cry, Rhoda's eyes shone with a tender light, though the tears dimmed them at times. It was a peaceful, tranquil day, with few words spoken by anyone. Aunt Priscilla's step had never been so quiet, or her voice so gentle; and she seemed to Joan to be quite a different person.
When the short afternoon was over, and Nathan's work was done, he came upstairs to visit Rhoda. She had been as dear to him as his own child; and as he took her small, withered hand in his, his dim old eyes grew dark with tears.