"Always rushing at things
like Job's charger, and having to rush back again. Never once have I
read that without thinking of you. That's why you fixed up an angel out
of poor little Isabel."

The parson made a fine gesture of dissent. He had forgotten Isabel.

"Do you want to know what else I did?" Her voice grew hard and
unfamiliar. "I'll tell you. I went to my sister Eliza, and I said: 'Some
way or another, you've spoilt my life. I'll forgive you just as soon as
I can--maybe before you die, maybe not. You come with me!' and I went up
garret, where she kept the chest with things in it that belonged to them
that had died. There it sets now. I stood over it with her. 'I'm going
to put my dead things in here,' I said. 'If you touch a finger to 'em,
I'll get up in meeting and tell what you've done. I'm going to put in
everything left from what you've murdered; and every time you come here,
you'll remember you were a murderer.' I frightened her. I'm glad I did.
She's dead and gone, and I've forgiven her; but I'm glad now!"

The parson looked at her with amazement. She seemed on fire. All the
smouldering embers of a life denied had blazed at last. She put on her
glasses and walked over to the chest.

"Here!" she continued; "let's uncover the dead. I've tried to do it ever
since she died, so the other things could be burned; but my courage
failed me. Could you turn these screws, if I should get you a knife?
They're in tight. I put 'em in myself, and she stood by."

The little lid of the till had been screwed fast. The two middle-aged
people bent over it together, trying first the scissors and then the
broken blade of the parson's old knife. The screws came slowly. When
they were all out, he stood back a pace and gazed at her. Mary Ellen
looked no longer alert and vivified. Her face was haggard.

"I shut it," she said, in a whisper. "You lift it up."

The parson lifted the lid. There they lay, her poor little relics,--a
folded manuscript, an old-fashioned daguerreotype, and a tiny locket.
The parson could not see. His hand shook as he took them solemnly out
and gave them to her. She bent over the picture, and looked at it, as we
search the faces of the dead. He followed her to the light, and, wiping
his glasses, looked also.

"That was my picture," he said musingly. "I never've had one since. And
that was mother's locket. It had"--He paused and looked at her.

"Yes," said Mary Ellen softly; "it's got it now." She ope