riginal process of compounding
"Abraham" and "Baby;" and "Raby" he was from that day out. He was a
beautiful child: his mother's blue eyes, his father's dark hair, and a
skin like a ripe peach, but not over fair,--made a combination of color
which was rarely lovely. He was a joyous child, as joyous as if no
shadow had ever rested on his mother's heart. Sally watched him day by
day with delight; but the delight was never wholly free from pain: the
wound she had received, the wound she had inflicted on herself, could
never wholly heal. A deep, moral hurt must for ever leave its trace, as
surely as a deep wound in a man's flesh must leave its scar. It is of
no use for us to think to evade this law; neither is it a law wholly
of retribution. The scar on the flesh is token of nature's process of
healing: so is the scar of a perpetual sorrow, which is left on a soul
which has sinned and repented. Sally and Jim were leading healthful and
good lives now; and each day brought them joys and satisfactions: but
their souls were scarred; the fulness of joy which might have been
theirs they could never taste. And the loss fell where it could never
be overlooked for a moment,--on their joy in their child. In the very
holiest of holies, in the temple of the mother's heart, stood for ever a
veiled shape, making ceaseless sin-offering for the past.

As the winter set in, an anxiety fell on the family which had passed so
sunny a summer. With the first sharp cold winds, little Raby developed a
tendency to croup. Neither Sally nor Hetty had ever seen a case of this
terrible and alarming disease; and, in Raby's first attack of it, they
had both thought the child dying. Now was Doctor Eben brought again
into close and intimate relations with Hetty. During the months of the
summer, he had, in spite of all his efforts, in spite of his frequent
visits to her house, in spite of all Hetty's frank cordiality of manner,
felt himself slowly slipping away from the vantage-ground he hoped he
had gained with her. This was the result of two things,--one which he
knew, and one which he did not dream of: the cause which he knew, was a
very simple and evident one, Hetty's constant preoccupation. Hetty was
a very busy woman: what with Raby, the farm, the house, her social
relations with the whole village, she had never a moment of leisure.
Often when Dr. Eben came to the house, he found her away; and often when
he found her at home, she was called away before