"She can do it," whispered the landlord with a sly wink. "She knows every body's history from Dan to Beersheby."
This intimation was wholly lost on the good-humored hostess, who continued, "Mr. Fletcher died when Sarah was small, and her mother married a Mr. ——, I don't justly remember his name"
"Temple?" suggested Mary.
"Yes, Temple, that's it. He was rich and cross, and broke her heart by the time she had her second baby. Sarah was adopted by her Grandmother Fletcher who died, and she came with her uncle to America."
"Did she ever speak of her sisters?" asked Mary, and the woman replied, "Before she got crazy, she did. One of 'em, she said, was in this country somewhere, and t'other the one she remembered the best, and talked the most about, lived in England. She said she wanted to write to 'em, but her uncle, he hated the Temples, so he wouldn't let her, and as time went on she kinder forgot 'em, and didn't know where to direct, and after she took crazy she never would speak of her sisters, or own that she had any."
"Is Mr. Furbush buried near here?" asked George; and the landlord answered, "Little better than a stone's throw. I can see the very tree from here, and may-be your younger eyes can make out the graves. He ought to have a grave stun, for he was a good feller."
The new moon was shining, and Mary, who came to her husband's side, could plainly discern the buckeye tree and the two graves where "Willie and Willie's father" had long been sleeping. The next morning before the sun was up, Mary stood by the mounds where often in years gone by Sally Furbush had seen the moon go down, and the stars grow pale in the coming day, as she kept her tireless watch over her loved and lost.
"Willie was my cousin—your cousin," said Mary, resting her foot upon the bit of board which stood at the head of the little graves. George understood her wishes, and when they left the place, a handsome marble slab marked the spot where the father and his infant son were buried.
Bewildered, and unable to comprehend a word, Sally listened while Mary told her of the relationship between them; but the mists which for years had shrouded her reason were too dense to be suddenly cleared away; and when Mary wept, winding her arms around her neck and calling her "Aunt;" and when the elegant Mrs. Campbell, scarcely less bewildered than Sally herself, came forward addressing her as "sister," she turned aside to Mrs. Mason, asking in a whisper "what had made them crazy."