r the touch of the young hand
that held hers so closely. Suddenly a light came into her face and her
lip quivered.

"Perhaps I have been remembering wrong all these years," she said. "It
is my great trouble, remembering wrong. Perhaps my baby did not die as I
thought; perhaps she lived and grew up; perhaps" (her pale cheek burned
and her eyes shone like stars) "perhaps she has come back!"

Waitstill could not speak; she put her arm round the trembling figure,
holding her as she was wont to hold Patty, and with the same protective
instinct. The embrace was electric in its effect and set altogether
new currents of emotion in circulation. Something in Lois Boynton's
perturbed mind seemed to beat its wings against the barriers that had
heretofore opposed it, and, freeing itself, mounted into clearer air and
went singing to the sky. She rested her cheek on the girl's breast with
a little sob. "Oh! let me go on remembering wrong," she sighed, from
that safe shelter. "Let me go on remembering wrong! It makes me so
happy!"

Waitstill gently led her to the rocking-chair and sat down beside her
on the lowest step, stroking her thin hand. Mrs. Boynton's eyes were
closed, her breath came and went quickly, but presently she began to
speak hurriedly, as if she were relieving a surcharged heart.

"There is something troubling me," she began, "and it would ease my mind
if I could tell it to some one who could help. Your hand is so warm and
so firm! Oh, hold mine closely and let me draw in strength as long
as you can spare it; it is flowing, flowing from your hand into mine,
flowing like wine.... My thoughts at night are not like my thoughts by
day, these last weeks.... I wake suddenly and feel that my husband has
been away a long time and will never come back.... Often, at night, too,
I am in sore trouble about something else, something I have never told
Ivory, the first thing I have ever hidden from my dear son, but I think
I could tell you, if only I could be sure about it."

"Tell me if it will help you; I will try to understand," said Waitstill
brokenly.

"Ivory says Rodman is the child of my dead sister. Some one must have
told him so; could it have been I? It haunts me day and night, for
unless I am remembering wrong again, I never had a sister. I can call to
mind neither sister nor brother."

"You went to New Hampshire one winter," Waitstill reminded her gently,
as if she were talking to a child. "It was bitter cold for