It was just a year later when a delicate, sweet-faced woman was shown through the wards of that "excellent home" for the poor and unfortunate. She walked with nervous haste, and her eyes glanced from room to room, and from face to face, as if seeking, yet dreading, some object.
Presently the attendant pushed open a partly closed door, which led into a small, close room, ventilated only by one high, narrow window.
"This is the room, I believe," he said, and the lady stepped in—and paused. The air was close and impure, and almost stifled her.
On the opposite side of the room she saw a large crib with a cover or lid which could be closed and locked when necessary, but which was raised now. In this crib, upon a hard mattress and soiled pillow, lay the emaciated form of an old man. He turned his sightless eyes toward the door as he heard the sound of footsteps.
"What is wanted?" he asked, feebly; "does anybody want me? Has anybody come for me?"
"O father, father!" cried the woman in a voice choked with sobs. "Don't you know me? It is I—and I have come to take you away—to take you away home with me. Will you go?"
A glow of delight shone over the old man's wasted face, like the last rays of the sunlight over a winter landscape. He half arose upon his elbow, and leaned forward as if trying to see the speaker.
"Why, it's Abby, it's Abby, come at last!" he said. "You called me father, didn't you—and you was crying, and it made your voice sound kind o' strange and broken like. But you must be Abby come to take me home. Oh, I thought you'd come at last, Abby. It seems a long, long time since I came away. And you've never been to see me; no, nor Ben, either. But you've come at last, Abby, you've come at last. Let me take your hand, daughter, for I can't see yet. They don't seem to help me here as you thought they would. And I'm so hungry, Abby!—do you think you could manage to get the old man a little something to eat before we start home?"
The woman had grown paler and paler as she listened to these words which the old man poured out in eager haste, like one whose thoughts and feelings long pent within himself for want of a listener now rushed forth pell-mell into speech.
"He does not know me," she whispered—"he does not know me. Well, I will not undeceive him now. He is happy in this delusion,—let him keep it for the present." Then, aloud, she said: