"Why, Mr. Miller, I am sure she was. Everybody is always saying how happy Mrs. Miller is. Only the other day I heard Sally Winn declare she never saw such a contented young married woman. Sally says lots of young married women are not happy; that it takes a long time for them to get used to husbands instead of sweethearts; but that your wife didn't have to do that because you seemed just like a sweetheart all the time."
"Did she say that,—did she truly? I wonder what made her think it."
"Something your wife told her, I reckon!"
"Oh, thank you! Thank you for that! She could have gone to her mother if I had known she wanted to."
"Of course she could, but maybe she did want to go to her mother and didn't want to leave you. I bet that was the reason she didn't tell you she wanted to see her mother. She knew you would insist upon her going, and then she would have had to leave you."
Now the poor anxious young man was smiling. He wiped his eyes and grasped my hand.
"You are powerful like Doc Allison, Miss Page. He knows how to cure a sick spirit just as well as a sick body, and you sure can comfort a fellow, too."
There was the creak of a screen door being hastily opened on the side porch of the farmhouse and an old colored woman came running out. Henry Miller jumped to his feet but could not go to meet her. Fear seemed to grip him. What news was she bringing?
"Marse Hinry, it's a boy! It's a boy!"
"A boy?"