uld not do the
mother's tasks for her but his heart could love sufficiently to
recompense, so far as that be possible, for the loss of the mother's
presence. His own childhood had been stripped of all romance, hence he
could not measure the value of the innocent pleasures of which Aunt
Maria, in her stern and narrow discipline, deprived the little girl; but
so far as he saw the light and so far as he was able, he quietly soothed
where Aunt Maria irritated, and mitigated by his interest and sympathy
the sternness of the woman's rule.

A fleeting retrospect of the past years crowded upon him as he heard
Phoebe sing the mother's song. The two voices seemed strangely merged
and blended; when she ended and turned her face to him she seemed the
vivid reincarnation of that other Phoebe.

"That's a pretty song, isn't it, daddy? You like it?"

"Yes. Your mom used to sing you to sleep with it."

"I wish I could remember. I can't remember her at all," the girl said
wistfully.

"I wish you could, too. You look just like her. I'm glad you do. We Metz
people all have the black hair and dark eyes but you have your mom's
light hair and blue eyes. I see her every time I look at you."

She seated herself near him. In a moment he spoke again, very
deliberately, with his characteristic expressiveness:

"Phoebe, I want you to know more about your mom. You know she was plain,
a member of our Church. I would like you to dress like she did but I
don't want you to dress that way and then be dissatisfied and go back to
the dress of the world. Not many people do that, but those that do are
the laughing-stock of the world. I don't want you coaxed to be plain and
then not stay plain. I tell you this because I can see that you are
just like your mom was, you like pretty things so much. She came in the
Church with some girls she knew; none of her people were plain. I knew
her right after she joined, and I took her to Love Feasts and to
Meetings and we were soon promised to marry each other. I saw that
something was troubling her and she told me that she wanted pretty
clothes again and wanted to go to parties and picnics like some of the
other girls she knew. But because she cared for me and was promised to
me she kept on dressing plain. So we were married. The second year you
came and then she was satisfied without pretty dresses. She said to me
once, 'Jacob, I was foolish to fret about pretty clothes and jewelry,
they could not bring happine