y Emily, I could never have undertaken it. You cannot
know how I gathered lessons from your happy home. In my earliest years I
was dissatisfied with the life which money could buy. I did not know the
comforts of work and pleasure mingled, and it was here, under these
grand old hills, while communing with nature, I sought and found the
presence of its Infinite Creator; and your smile, your presence, was a
promise to me which has been verified to the letter."

When Clara held our wondrous blessing in the early days of its sweet
life, she looked sometimes so pensively absent that I one day asked her
if she did not wish Emily had come sooner.

"Ah! my Emily, mother; 'tis a wrong, wrong thought, still I cannot deny
it;" and a mist covered her tender eyes. My heart stood still, for I
knew she felt that her hand would not lead our little one in the first
steps she should take, and the thought embittered my joy. I suppose
everybody's baby is the sweetest, and I must forbear and let every
mother think how we cared for and tended the little one, and how our
heartstrings all vibrated at the touch of her little hand, and if she
was ill or worrisome, which she was earthly enough to be, we were all
robbed of our comfort till her smiles came back.

Aunt Hildy was an especial favorite, and she would sit with her so
contentedly, while that dear old face, illumined by the sun of love,
told our hearts it was good for baby's breath to moisten the cheek of
age.

Little Halbert, as we called Hal's boy, was as proud of his cousin as
could be, and my old apple tree, which was still dear, dropped leaves
and blossoms on the heads of the children, who loved to sit beneath its
branches.

CHAPTER XXII.

CLARA LEAVES US.

The year 1861 had dawned upon us, and Aunt Hildy had not left us as she
had expected to.

I said to her, "I believe you are better to-day than you were one year
ago." She folded her hands and looking at me, said:

"Appearances is often deceitful, Emily; I haint long to stay, neither
has the saint among us. Her eyes have a strange look in them nowadays,
and the veins in the lids show dreadful plain; we must be prepared for
it."

I could not talk about this, and how was I to prepare for it? I should
never love her less, and could I ever bear to lose her, or realize how
it would be without her? "Over there" was so far beyond me, I could only
think and sigh and wait; but the symptoms of which Aunt Hildy spoke I
no