A low moan fell on her ear as she bent to listen. Thank Heaven, it was not too late! Willy could yet be saved!
Happy mother, receiving her precious one as if from the dead! Bewildered Willy, coming back to life with no remembrance of the dark river which he had almost forded, without a thought of the pearly gates he had almost entered!
Conscience-stricken "Liddy!" How she suffered when she found what she had done! Not that she made a scene by screaming and tearing her hair, as some ignorant people are apt to do at such a time. No; Liddy was a Quaker, and the Quaker blood is very quiet. She only pressed her hands together hard, and said to Mrs. Parlin,—
"Thee knows I never meant any harm to that sweet child."
CHAPTER IV.
THE OX-MONEY.
Perhaps the shock had some effect upon Willy's habits, for after this he did not walk in his sleep for some time.
But one night, as the teamsters were drinking their cider, and talking about the well-beloved "Kellup," wondering why he should take it into his head to steal,—"as honest a man, they had always thought, as ever trod shoe-leather,"—the bar-room door softly opened, and in glided Willy, in his flannel night-dress.