As she opens the door she sees her father sitting, as of old, by the table on which the lamp is burning, and she half turns to go out; but something in his attitude touches her. He is not reading, for the newspaper lies untouched—he is looking at something in his hand.
She notices how gray his hair is, and how age is tracing lines on his face. "Are you feeling sick, father?" she asks.
"Oh, no," he says. "Look here, Rachel;" and he hands her a faded daguerreotype of her mother taken when she was a fair young bride. "I was thinking about her."
"How much like Susy," she said, with tears falling on the lovely face.
"Yes, only she was prettier," he answers. "I have been thinking of her so much lately, Rachel. I am going to do something that would please her. I have bought that pretty little place of Perry's, and I will put Martha and her husband on it. Dick's a good industrious fellow; but it's hard to make anything on a rented farm, and Martha's worried too much. You don't think any of the children will object?" and he looked anxiously in her face.
"Object? Why, they will be glad, father!" And dropping her head on his shoulder, she puts her arm around him for the first time in her life; and as she slips the little daguerreotype in his hand a sweet peace fills her heart and she thinks: "The bitterness is gone, and love fills its place." After awhile she joins the group in the parlor. They are singing to Susy's accompaniment on the organ.
"Sing 'Coronation,' Susy," she says, as she sits down beside her husband and glances lovingly in his face.
"What is it?" he whispers. "You are unusually happy."
"Yes," she answers. "I have had a vision of the land of Beulah, where Love is king."
