me who have forgotten Him so long; but we will serve Him
together now."

As Ethie talked she had nestled closer and closer to her husband, whose
arms encircled her form and whose face bent itself down to hers, while a
rain of tears fell upon her hair and forehead as the strong man,--the
grave Judge and the honored Governor,--confessed where he, too, had been
in fault, and craving his young wife's pardon, ascribed also to God the
praise for bringing them both to feel their dependence on Him, as well
as to see this day, the happiest of their lives.

Gradually, as she could bear it, the family came in one by one to see
her, Mrs. Markham, Sen., waiting till the very last, and refusing to go
until Ethelyn had expressed a wish to see her.

"I was pretty hard on her, I s'pose, and it would not be strange if she
laid it up against me," she said to Melinda; but Ethie had nothing
against her now.

The deep waters through which she had passed had obliterated all traces
of bitterness toward anyone, and when her mother-in-law came in she
feebly extended her hand and whispered: "I'm too tired, mother, to talk
much, but kiss me once for the sake of what we are going to be to
each other."

Mrs. Markham was not naturally a bad or a hard woman, either. She was
only unfortunate that her ideas had run in one rut so long without any
jolt to throw them out. Circumstances had greatly softened her, and
Ethie's words touched her deeply.

"I was mighty mean to you sometimes, Ethelyn, and I've been sorry for
it," she said, as she stooped to kiss her daughter-in-law, and then
hurried from the room, "Only to think, she called me mother," she said
to Melinda, to whom she reported the particulars of her interview with
Ethelyn--"me, who had been meaner than dirt to her--called me mother,
when I used to mistrust her she didn't think any more of me than if I'd
been an old squaw. I shan't forget it right away."

Perhaps the sweetest, most joyful tears Ethelyn shed that day were those
which came to her eyes when they brought her Ethelyn, her namesake, the
little three-year-old, who pushed her brown curls back from her baby
face with such a womanly air, and said:

"I'se glad to see Aunt Ethie. I prays for her ever' night. Uncle Andy
told me so. I loves you, Aunt Ethie."

She was a beautiful little creature, and her innocent prattle and
engaging manners did much toward bringing the color back to Ethie's
cheeks and the brightness to her eyes. Thos