dren, it's me." She
wanted us all to sit down together.

"Oh! dear, dear me, what can I do? I'm out of my head almost."

We gathered together in the middle room, and waited for her to tell us,
but she sat rocking, as if her life depended on it, full five minutes
before she could speak--it seemed an hour to me--finally she screamed
out:

"He's come back!"

"Whom do you mean?" I cried, while mother and Aunt Hildy exchanged
glances.

"He came last night; he's over to the Home, Miss Patten, d'ye hear?"

"Jane," said Aunt Hildy in a voice that sounded so far away it
frightened me, "do you mean Daniel?"

"Yes, yes; he's come back, and he wants me to forgive him, and I must
tell it, he wants me to marry him. I sat up all night talkin' and
thinkin' what I can do."

"Jane," said Aunt Hildy, in that same strange voice, "has he got any
news?"

"Both of 'em dead. Oh, Miss Patten, you'll die, I know you'll die!"

"No, I shan't. I died when they went away."

"What can I do, Miss Patten? Oh, some of you _do_ speak! Mis' _De_-mond,
you tell; you are allus right."

Clara crossed the room, and kneeling on the carpet before her, said:

"My dear soul, is it the one you told me of?"

"Yes, yes," said Jane, "the very one; gall and worm-wood I drank, and
all for him; he ran away and--"

"Yes," added Aunt Hildy, "tell it all. Silas and our boy went with him,
father and son, and Satan led 'em all."

"Has he suffered much?" said Clara.

"Oh, yes, marm, but he says he can't live without me! He hain't never
been married; I'm fifty-four, and he's the same age."

"Jane," said Clara, "I guess it will be all right; let him stay with
you."

"How it looks," interrupted Jane; "they'll all know him."

"Never mind. The Home is a sort of public institution now; let him stay,
and in three weeks I'll tell you all about it."

"Get right up off this floor, you angel woman, and lemme set on the sofy
with you," said Jane.

Louis and I left the room, and after an hour or so Jane went over the
hill, and Aunt Hildy stepped as firmly as before she came. Poor Aunt
Hildy, this was the sorrow she had borne. I was glad she knew they were
dead, for uncertainty is harder to bear than certainty. I wondered how
it came that I should never have known and dimly remembered something
about some one's going away strangely, when I was a little girl. My
mother had, like all Aunt Hildy's friends, kept her sorrow secret, and
she told me it was a rare occ