. I thought she wouldn't live to
have anybody despise her because she had had me for a mother. Somehow it
don't seem fair, does it, Hetty, to have people punished for what their
parents do? But the minister over at the Corners, that used to come and
see me, he said that was what it meant in the Bible, where it said:
'Unto the third and fourth generation.' But I can't think it's so bad as
that. You don't believe, Hetty, do you, that if I should have several
children, and they should be married, that their grandchildren would
ever hear any thing about me, how wicked I had been: do you, Hetty?"

"No, indeed, child!" said Hetty sharply, feeling as if she should cry.
"Of course I don't believe any such thing; and, if I did, I wouldn't
worry over it. Why, I don't even know my great-grandmother's name," she
laughed, "much less whether she were good or bad."

"Oh, but the bad things last so!" said Sally. "Nobody says any thing
about the good things: it's always the bad ones. I don't see why people
like to: if they didn't, there'd be some chance of a thing's being
forgotten."

"Never you mind, Sally," said Hetty, in a tone unusually caressing for
her. "Never you mind, nobody talks about you now, except to say the good
things; and you are always going to stay with me as long as I live, and
when that baby comes we'll just wonder how we ever got along without
him."

"Oh, Hetty, you're just one of the Lord's angels!" cried Sally.

"Humph!" said Hetty. "I hope he's got better ones. There wasn't much
angel about me this morning when that mother-in-law of yours was here, I
can tell you. I wonder if she'll have the heart to keep away after the
baby's born."

"I thought of that, too," said Sally, timidly. "If it should be a boy,
I think maybe she'd be pleased. She always did worship Jim. That's the
reason she hates me so," sighed Sally.

It was the last of March before the longed-for baby came. Never did baby
have a better welcome. It was as if three mothers had awaited his
coming. Hetty's happiness was far greater than Sally's, and Nan's was
hardly less. Hetty had been astonished at herself for the passionate
yearning she had felt towards the little unborn creature from the
beginning, and, when she took the little fellow in her arms, her first
thought was, "Dear me! if mothers feel any more than I feel now, how can
they bear it?" Turning to Jim, she exclaimed, "Oh, Jim! I'm sure you
ought to be happy now. We'll name this little