The glare that came to her eye with the three words revealed a desperation that would have done battle with the King of Terrors, had he appeared in visible shape to claim his victim.
More faintly, slowly, trembled the life over the sweet mouth, and the hands, like waxen shapes, lay pulseless in the mother's clasp; while through the silent room flowed the dirge of the sea. Shaken by the freshening breeze of evening, the shutters of the western window swung ajar, letting in a golden ray upon mother and child, and along that path of light the untarnished soul of Baby Belle was borne by its waiting angel—home!
CHAPTER XVIII.
Aunt Sarah sat in the wide porch at the back of her house, knitting in hand. It was a still, but not oppressive August afternoon. There was not a ruffle on the bright surface of the river, and the long meadow grass was as smoothly spread out in the yellow sunshine. From the poultry-yard on the left arose a pleasant murmur, and now and then a stray hen tiptoed around the end of the house, singing idly as she rambled. Charley lay on the green mound—his old reading-room—with a book before him, and to him Aunt Sarah's motherly eyes turned most frequently. Those kindly orbs were dimmer than they were two summers ago, and the gentle face was a thought more pensive. A glance into the sitting-room window, from where she sat, would have showed one Uncle Nathan's empty arm-chair in the chimney corner, and above it were suspended his cane and broad-brimmed hat, just as he had put them off when he took his departure for a country where neither shelter nor staff is needed. Aunt Sarah's cap had a widow's border now; and in her faithful heart there was a sadder void than the death of her children had created—loving parent though she was—and yet more plentiful springs of sympathy for others bereaved and suffering.
Her rocking-chair was set near the entrance of the hall that bisected the dwelling; and the front and back doors being open, she had a fair view of the public road, whenever she chose to look up the lane. The Shrewsbury stage met the boat at four o'clock, or soon after; and hearing a rumbling along the highway, which she knew presaged its transit through this end of the village, the old lady leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the trunks upon the roof; this being all she could distinguish with certainty above the fence.
"Why, it is stopping here!" she ejaculated, getting up to obtain a better look. "Who upon earth can it be?"
The coach rolled on, and the passenger for the farm-house came through the gate and down the lane. She was dressed in black, wore a crape veil, and carried a small hand-trunk. With a hospitable instinct, Aunt Sarah advanced to the front porch to meet her, still entirely in the dark as to who it could be.
"She has a different look from any of the neighbors; and there's nobody in York that would be likely to come to see me, except Betsy's people, and it can't be either of her girls!"
At this stage of her cogitations, the visitant reached the step on which the hostess stood, and put away the long veil from a face so worn and seamed with grief, so hollow-eyed and old, that the good aunt screamed outright in her distressed astonishment—