“No; but, sure, he got the Saviour’s blood on his breast, and wears it there to this day, and that was honor enough for him.”
“Want to shee blood on his bweast,” said Pinkie; so nurse put down her sewing, and looked for a picture of a robin, and, by the time she had succeeded, the children were eager for play again, and Freddy’s wheeled chair became the Ark of the Covenant, with Pinkie dancing before it as King David, while Louis and his mouth-harp represented all the priests and Levites.
That same night Susan Price quietly and peacefully faded out of life. She had borne sorrow and pain enough; had she helped any one to be good? It would have been hard to judge of so blank and colorless a life. She had never seemed other than a pale reflection of her sister, even her love and loyalty to whom had been too instinctive and shadow-like to appear other than a thing of course.
“I’ll try to live without you, Sue,” said Sally, looking down on the cold, placid face. “I’ll try to live without you, and, since the Lord has taken you, I s’pose I kin,—now! But when we was poor and starvin’, Sue, I couldn’t of, I know I couldn’t; and it’ll be a long day, sister, until I see you again.”
And this was Susan Price’s sole funeral oration.
BOOK II.
ALTRUISM.
CHAPTER I.
AFTER TWELVE YEARS.
It was a brilliant day towards the lamb-like end of a March, whose beginning had been of a particularly leonine character. The leaf-buds upon the trees showed faint lines of green along their smooth circumference of delicate brown; the dry, dead grass of winter had been replaced by young blades of a tender verdure; yet the air was cool and pleasantly crisp, though the sunshine, as every one said, was warm enough for June.
At the South Micklegard railroad station, a short, jolly-looking gentleman seemed to differ from the prevailing opinion as to the heat; for his hands were in his pockets, and his overcoat buttoned closely over his stout form up to the smooth-shaven chin.
Up and down the sunniest part of the platform he walked briskly, with at every turn so impatient a glance along the track that, by and by, a porter, wheeling up his empty truck to be in readiness for the coming freight, paused to ask him a question.