as happy,
but I didn't know how to be as happy as Lovey did; I wa'n't made on that
pattern.

"When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, same as mine), her eyes
shone like two evening stars. She held up her weak arms, and gathered
the little bundle o' warm flannen into 'em; and when she got it close
she shut her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb
to the altar and offering it up as a sacrifice. Then Reuben come in. I
seen him give one look at the two dark heads laying close together on
the white piller, and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed.
'T wa'n't no place for me; I went off, and left 'em together. We didn't
mistrust it then, but they only had three days more of happiness, and
I'm glad I give 'em every minute."

The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over the hills of Pleasant
River. Priscilla's lip trembled; Diadema's tears fell thick and fast on
the white rosebud, and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed
the pattern.

"I ain't said as much as this about it for five years," she went on,
with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, "but now I've got going I can't
stop. I'll have to get the weight out o' my heart somehow.

"Three days after I put Lovey's baby into her arms the Lord called her
home. 'When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,' says she
holding the baby as if she could never let it go, 'I didn't think I'd
got to give up my own in place of it; but it's the first fiery flood
we've had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I'll tread it as brave
as I know how.'

"She didn't speak a word after that; she just faded away like a
snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared at one another in the
face as if we was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o'
mourning like sleep-walkers for days and says, not knowing whether we et
or slept, or what we done.

"As for the baby, the poor little mite didn't live many hours after its
mother, and we buried 'em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would
have liked. She gave her life for the baby's, and it was a useless
sacrifice, after all. No, it wa'n't neither; it _could_n't have been!
You needn't tell me God'll let such sacrifices as that come out useless!
But anyhow, we had one coffin for 'em both, and I opened Lovey's arms
and laid the baby in 'em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we
thought she seemed more 'n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There
never was another