for all that I cannot be just to you, when I think of it. We must
put it away from us for ever. We are old now, and have perhaps only a
few years to live together."

Here Hetty interrupted him with a sudden cry of dismay:

"Oh! oh! I forgot every thing but you. I ought to have been at Dr.
Macgowan's an hour ago. Indeed, Eben, I must go this minute. Do not try
to hinder me. There is a patient there who is so ill. I fear he will not
live through the day. Oh, how selfish of me to have forgotten him for a
single moment! But how can I leave you! How can I leave you!"

As she spoke, she moved hastily about the room, making her preparations
to go. Her husband did not attempt to delay her. A strange feeling was
creeping over him, that, by Hetty's removal of herself from him, by her
new life, her new name, new duties, she had really ceased to be his. He
felt weak and helpless: the shock had been too great, and he was not
strong. When Hetty was ready, he said:

"Shall I walk with you, Hetty?"

She hesitated. She feared to be seen talking in an excited way with this
stranger: she dreaded to lose her husband out of her sight.

"Oh, Eben!" she exclaimed, "I do not know what to do. I cannot bear to
let you go from me for a moment. How shall I get through this day! I
will not go to Dr. Macgowan's any more. I will get Sister Catharine from
the convent to come and take my place at once. Yes, come with me. We
will walk together, but we must not talk, Eben."

"No," said her husband.

He understood and shared her feeling. In silence they took their way
through the outskirts of the town. Constantly they stole furtive looks
at each other; Hetty noting with sorrow the lines which grief and
ill-health had made in the doctor's face; he thinking to himself:

"Surely it is a miracle that age and white hair should make a woman more
beautiful."

But it was not the age, the white hair: it was the transfiguration of
years of self-sacrifice and ministering to others.

"Hetty," said Dr. Eben, as they drew near Dr. Macgowan's gate, "what is
this name by which the village people call you? I heard it on
everybody's lips, but I could not make it out."

Hetty colored. "It is French for Aunt Hibba," she replied. "They speak
it as if it were one word, 'Tantibba.'"

"But there was more to it," said her husband. "'Bo Tantibba,' they
called you."

"Oh, that means merely 'Good Aunt Hibba,'" she said confusedly. "You see
some of them think I have