nd with difficulty disengaged the child from the cold
clasp in which dying love had bound him to a heart which should beat no
more with mortal joy or sorrow.

Sally, after the first moment, had run screaming toward the house, with
all a child's forward eagerness, to be the bearer of news; but the
little Mara stood, looking anxiously, with a wishful earnestness of
face.

"Pitty boy,--pitty boy,--come!" she said often; but the old man was so
busy, he scarcely regarded her.

"Now, Cap'n Kittridge, do tell!" said Miss Roxy, meeting him in all
haste, with a cap-border stiff in air, while Dame Kittridge exclaimed,--

"Now, you don't! Well, well! didn't I say that was a ship last night?
And what a solemnizing thought it was that souls might be goin' into
eternity!"

"We must have blankets and hot bottles, right away," said Miss Roxy, who
always took the earthly view of matters, and who was, in her own person,
a personified humane society. "Miss Kittridge, you jist dip out your
dishwater into the smallest tub, and we'll put him in. Stand away, Mara!
Sally, you take her out of the way! We'll fetch this child to, perhaps.
I've fetched 'em to, when they's seemed to be dead as door-nails!"

"Cap'n Kittridge, you're sure the woman's dead?"

"Laws, yes; she had a blow right on her temple here. There's no bringing
her to till the resurrection."

"Well, then, you jist go and get Cap'n Pennel to come down and help you,
and get the body into the house, and we'll attend to layin' it out by
and by. Tell Ruey to come down."

Aunt Roxy issued her orders with all the military vigor and precision of
a general in case of a sudden attack. It was her habit. Sickness and
death were her opportunities; where they were, she felt herself at home,
and she addressed herself to the task before her with undoubting faith.

Before many hours a pair of large, dark eyes slowly emerged from under
the black-fringed lids of the little drowned boy,--they rolled dreamily
round for a moment, and dropped again in heavy languor.

The little Mara had, with the quiet persistence which formed a trait in
her baby character, dragged stools and chairs to the back of the bed,
which she at last succeeded in scaling, and sat opposite to where the
child lay, grave and still, watching with intense earnestness the
process that was going on. At the moment when the eyes had opened, she
stretched forth her little arms, and said, eagerly, "Pitty boy,
come,"--and then, a