The matron shook her head, and gave the bright key in her hand a little, quiet twirl, which said plainly as words, that it was of no use; but she led the way down stairs, and conducted Mrs. Gray to the prisoner's cell.

The woman was still lying with her forehead against the wall, quite motionless, but she turned her face as the matron spoke, and Mrs. Gray saw that it was drenched with tears.

The huckster woman sat down upon the bed, and took one of the prisoner's hands in hers. It was a large, but beautifully formed hand, full of natural vigor, but now it lay nerveless and inert in that kind clasp, and, for a moment, Mrs. Gray smoothed down the languid fingers with her own plump palm.

The woman, at first, shrunk from this mute kindness, and, half rising, fixed her great black eyes upon her visitor in sudden and almost fierce astonishment, but she shrunk back from the rosy kindness of that face with a deep breath, and lay motionless again.

Mrs. Gray spoke then in her own frank, cheerful way, and asked permission to take the little boy home with her. She described her comfortable old house, the garden, the poultry, the birds that built their nests in the twin maples, the quant.i.ty of winter apples laid up in the cellar. All the elements of happiness to a bright and healthy child she thus lay temptingly before the mother. Again the woman started up.

"Are you a moral reformer?" she said, with a sharp sneer.

"No!" answered Mrs. Gray, with a puzzled look. "At any rate not as I know of, but in these times you have so many new fangled names for simple things, that I may be one without having the least idea of it!"

"A philanthropist then--are you that?"

"Haven't the least notion what the thing is," cried Mrs. Gray, with perfect simplicity.

"Are you one of those women who hang around prisons to pick up other people's children, while their own are running wild at home--who give a garret-bed and second-hand crusts to these poor creatures, and then scream out through society and newspaper reports for the world to come and see what angels you are? Who pick up a poor wretch from the cells here, and impose her off upon some kind fool from the country, whom she robs, of course; and before she has been tried three weeks, blaze out her reformation to the whole world, forgetting to tell the robbery when it comes?

"Do you want my boy for a pattern? Do you intend to have it shouted in some paper or anniversary report, how great a thing your society has done in s.n.a.t.c.hing this poor little imp from his mother's bosom as a brand from the burning fire? In short, do you want to hold him up as a lure for the innocent country people who pour money into your laps, honestly believing that it all goes for the cause, and never once asking how yourselves are supported all the while? Are you one of these, I say?"

"Goodness gracious knows I ain't anything of the kind," answered Mrs.

Gray. "Never set up for an angel in my life, never expect to on this side of the grave."

"Then you are not a lady president?"

"In our free and glorious country," answered Mrs. Gray, now more at home, for she had listened to a good many Fourth of July orations in her time; "in this country it's against the law for old women to be Presidents. At any rate, I never heard of one in a cap and white ap.r.o.n!"

A gleam of rich humor shot over the prisoner's face.

"Then you are not a member of any society?" she said, won into more kindly temper by the frank cordiality of her visitor.

Mrs. Gray's face became very serious, and her brown eyes shone with gentle l.u.s.tre.

"It's my privilege to be a humble member of the Baptist church; but unless you have a conscience against immersion, I don't know as that ought to stand in the poor boy's way, especially as he may have been baptized already."

"Then you are not a charitable woman by profession? You are willing to take my boy for his own good? What will you do with him if I say yes?"

"Why, pretty much as I did with nephew Robert; let him run in the garden, hunt eggs, drive the geese home when he knows the way himself; and do all sorts of ch.o.r.es that will keep him out of mischief, and in health; as he grows old enough I will send him to school, and teach him the Lord's prayer myself. In short, I shall do pretty much like other people; scold him when he is bad, kiss him when he is good; in the end make him just such a handsome, honest, n.o.ble chap as my Robert is--that nephew of mine. Everybody admits that he is the salt of the earth, and I brought him up myself, every inch of him!"

"And among the rest you will teach him to forget and despise his mother," said the woman, bending her wet eyes upon Mrs. Gray, with a look of pa.s.sionate scrutiny.

"I never wilfully went against the Bible in my life. When the child learns to read, he will find it written there, 'Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee.'"

"Can I see him when I please?"

"Certainly--why not?"

"But I am a prisoner; I have been here more than once."

"You are his mother," was the soft answer.

"You will be ashamed to have me coming to your house."

"Why so? I have been a quiet neighbor--an upright woman, so far as my light went, all my life. Why should I fear to have any one come to my own house?"

"But he will be ashamed of me! With a comfortable home, with friends, schooling--my own child, will learn to scorn and hate his mother!"

"No," answered Mrs. Gray, and her fine old face glowed with the pious prophecy--"no, because his mother will herself be a good woman, by-and-bye, _it is sure_. You are not dead at the root yet; want care, pruning, sunshine; will live to be a useful member of society before long--I have faith to believe it. G.o.d help you--G.o.d bless you. Now speak out at once, can I take the little fellow?"

"Yes," answered the woman, casting herself across the bed, and pressing both hands hard against her eyes--"yes, take him--take him!"

And so Mrs. Gray returned to her old homestead with three new inmates that night. It was a bleak, sharp day, and the maple leaves were whirling in showers about the old house as they drove up. A crisp frost had swept every flower from the beds, and all the soft tints of green from the door-yard and garden. Still there was nothing gloomy in the scene; the sitting-room windows were glowing with petted chrysanthemums, golden, snow-tinted and rosy, all bathed and nodding in a flood of light that poured up from the bright hickory-wood fire.

Robert had ridden on before the rest, bearing household directions from Mrs. Gray to the Irish servant girl. A nice supper stood ready upon the table, and a copper tea-kettle was before the fire, pouring out a thin cloud of steam from its spout, and starting off now and then in a quick, cheerful bubble, as if quite impatient to be called into active service.

The fine bird's-eye diaper that flowed from the table--the little old-fashioned china cups, and the tall, plated candlesticks, from which the light fell in long, rich gleams, composed one of the most cheering pictures in the world.

Then dear old Mrs. Gray was so happy herself, so full of quiet, soothing kindness; the very tones of her voice were hopeful. When she laughed, all the rest were sure to smile, very faintly it is true; but still these smiles were little gleams won from the most agonizing grief.

Altogether it was one of those evenings when we say to one another, "well, I cannot realize all this sorrow when the soul becomes dreamy, and softly casts aside the shafts of pain that goad it so fiercely at other times."

Little George fell asleep after tea, and Julia sat upon the crimson moreen couch under the windows, pillowing his head on her lap. The chrysanthemums rose in a flowery screen behind her, their soft shadows pencilling themselves on her cheek, and lying in the deeper blackness of her hair. Robert Otis spoke but little that night, and his dear, simple old aunt felt quite satisfied that the gaze which he turned so steadily toward the windows was dwelling in admiration on her flowers.

Be this as it may, his glance brought roses to that pale cheek, and kindled up the soft eyes that lay like violets shrouded beneath their thick lashes, with a brilliancy that had never burned there before.

Julia's heart was far too sorrowful for _thoughts_ of love, but there was something thrilling in her bosom deeper than grief, and more exquisite than any joy she had yet known.

But Robert Otis was more self-possessed. His thoughts took a more tangible form, and though he could not account to himself for the feeling of vague regret that mingled with his admiration, as he gazed upon the young girl, it was strong enough to fill his heart with sadness. Mrs. Gray noticed the gloom upon his brow as she sat in her arm-chair, basking in the glow of that n.o.ble wood fire. A dish of the finest crimson apples had just been placed on the little round stand before her, and she began testing their mellowness with her fingers, as a hint for her nephew to circulate them among her guests. Robert saw nothing of this, for he was pondering over the miserable position of that young girl, in his mind, and had no idea that his abstraction was noticed.

"Come--come," said Mrs. Gray, "you have been moping there long enough, nephew, forgetting manners and everything else. Here are the apples waiting, and no one to hand them round, for when I once get settled in this easy-chair"--here the good woman gave a smiling survey of her ample person, which certainly overflowed the chair at every point, leaving all but a ridge of the back and the curving arms quite invisible--"it isn't a very easy thing to get up again. Now bustle about, and while we old women rest ourselves, you and Julia, there, can try your luck with the apple-seeds.

"I remember the first time I ever surmised that Mr. Gray had taken a notion to me, was once when we were at an apple-cutting together down in Maine. Somehow Mr. Gray got into my neighborhood when we ranged round the great basket of apples. I felt my cheeks burn the minute he drew his seat so close to mine, and took out his jack-knife to begin work. He pared and I quartered. I never looked up but once--then his cheek was redder than mine, and he held the jack-knife terribly unsteady.

By-and-bye he got a n.o.ble, great apple, yellow as gold, and smooth as a baby's cheek. I was looking at his hands sidewise from under my lashes, and saw that he was paring it carefully, as if every round of the skin was a strip of gold. At last he cut it off at the seed end, and the soft rings fell down over his wrist as I took the apple from his fingers.

"'Now,' says he, in a whisper, bending his head a little, and raising the apple-peel carefully with his right hand, 'I'm just as sure this will be the first letter of a name that I love, as I am that we are alive.' He began softly whirling the apple-peel round his head; the company was all busy with one another, and I was the only one who saw the yellow links quivering around his head, once, twice, three times.

Then he held it still a moment, and sat looking right into my eyes. I held my breath, and so did he.

"'Now,' says he, and his breath came out with a quiver, 'what if it should be your name?'

"I did not answer, and we both looked back at the same time. Sure enough it was a letter S. No pen ever made one more beautifully. 'Just as I expected,' says he, and his eyes grew bright as diamonds--'just as I expected.' That was all he said."

"And what answer did you make, aunt?" asked Robert Otis, who had been listening with a flushed face, "What did you say?"

"I didn't speak a word, but quartered on just as fast as I could. As for Mr. Gray, he kept paring, and paring, like all possessed. I thought he would never stop paring, or speak a word more. By-and-bye he stuck the point of his knife into an apple, and unwinding the skin from around it, he handed it over to me. It was a red skin, I remember, and cut as smooth as a ribbon.

"'I shouldn't a bit wonder if that dropped into a letter G,' says Mr.

Gray. 'Supposing you try it.'

"Well, I took the red apple-skin, and whirled it three times round my head, and down it went on to the floor, curled up into the nicest capital G that you ever sat eyes on.