oker's dead
and gone?"

"The Lord in heaven forbid!" exclaimed Miss Cynthia, throwing up her
hands. "A child of fifteen years old, if she is a woman to look at!"

"It's too bad,--it's too bad to think of, Miss Cynthy; and there's that
poor woman dyin' by inches, and Miss Bathsheby settin' with her day
and night, she has n't got a bit of her father in her, it's all her
mother,--and that man, instead of bein' with her to comfort her as any
man ought to be with his wife, in sickness and in health, that's what he
promised. I 'm sure when my poor husband was sick.... To think of that
man goin' about to talk religion to all the prettiest girls he can find
in the parish, and his wife at home like to leave him so soon,--it's a
shame,--so it is, come now! Miss Cynthy, there's one of the best men and
one of the learnedest men that ever lived that's a real friend of Myrtle
Hazard, and a better friend to her than she knows of,--for ever sence he
brought her home, he feels jest like a father to her,--and that man is
Mr. Gridley, that lives in this house. It's him I 'll speak to about the
minister's carry'in's on. He knows about his talking sweet to our Susan,
and he'll put things to rights! He's a master hand when he does once
take hold of anything, I tell you that! Jest get him to shet up them
books of his, and take hold of anybody's troubles, and you'll see how he
'll straighten 'em out."

There was a pattering of little feet on the stairs, and the two small
twins, "Sossy" and "Minthy," in the home dialect, came hand in hand
into the room, Miss Susan leaving them at the threshold, not wishing to
interrupt the two ladies, and being much interested also in listening to
Mr. Gifted Hopkins, who was reading some of his last poems to her, with
great delight to both of them.

The good woman rose to take them from Susan, and guide their uncertain
steps. "My babies, I call 'em, Miss Cynthy. Ain't they nice children?
Come to go to bed, little dears? Only a few minutes, Miss Cynthy."

She took them into the bedroom on the same floor, where they slept,
and, leaving the door open, began undressing them. Cynthia turned her
rocking-chair round so as to face the open door. She looked on while
the little creatures were being undressed; she heard the few words they
lisped as their infant prayer, she saw them laid in their beds, and
heard their pretty good-night.

A lone woman to whom all the sweet cares of maternity have been denied
cannot l