, or that he had a mad longing to
catch the tired-looking child up to his brawny breast and hold her there
forever. But he felt guilty and ashamed that it was so; not knowing that
Christ, seeing the pure thrill in his heart, smiled just as he did long
ago when Mary brought the beloved disciple to him.

He never had told little Lizzy that he loved her,--hardly told himself.
Why, he was forty-five,--and a year or two ago she was sledding down the
street with her brothers, a mere yellow-haired baby. He remembered the
first time he had noticed her,--one Christmas eve; his mother and Sarah
were alive then. There was an Italian woman came to the village with a
broken hand-organ, a filthy, starving wretch, and Gurney's little girl
went with her from house to house in the snow, singing Christmas carols,
and handing the tambourine. Everybody said, "Why, you little tot!" and
gave her handfuls of silver. Such a wonderful voice she had even then,
and looked so chubby and pretty in her little blue cloak and hood; and
going about with the woman was such a pure-hearted thing to do. She
danced once or twice that day, striking the tambourine, he remembered;
the sound of it seemed to put her in a sort of ecstasy, laughing till
her eyes were full of tears, and her tangled hair fell all about her red
cheeks. She could not help but do it, he believed, for at other times
she was shy, terrified, if one spoke to her; but he wished he had not
seen her dance then, though she was only a child: dancing, he thought,
was as foul and effective a snare as ever came from hell. After that day
she used often to come to the farm to see his mother and Sarah.
They tried to teach her to sew, but she was a lazy little thing, he
remembered, with an indulgent smile. And he was "Uncle Dan." So now she
was grown up, quite a woman: in those years, when she had been with her
kinsfolk in New York, she had been taught to sing. Well, well! McKinstry
reckoned music as about as useful as the crackling of thorns under a
pot; so he never cared to know, what was the fact, that this youngest
daughter of Gurney's had one of the purest contralto voices in the
States. She came home, grown, but just as shy; only tired, needing care:
no one could look in Lizzy Gurney's face without wishing to comfort and
help the child. The Gurneys were so wretchedly poor, that might be the
cause of her look. She was a woman now. Well, and then? Why, nothing
then. He was Uncle Dan still, of whom