degrees. He was
a well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but sometimes a dreaded
one.

He had a deep affection for the Lester household and its several members
returned this feeling with interest. They mourned over his kind of
Christianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on
loving each other just the same.

He was approaching the house--out of the distance; the aunts and the
culprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.

CHAPTER III

The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere, the
transgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned her head on the pillow;
her tired eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and passionate
mother-love when they fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge and
shelter of her arms.

"Wait!" said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed the girl from
leaping into them.

"Helen," said the other aunt, impressively, "tell your mother all. Purge
your soul; leave nothing unconfessed."

Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young girl mourned
her sorrowful tale through the end, then in a passion of appeal cried
out:

"Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you forgive me?--I am so
desolate!"

"Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms!--there, lay your head
upon my breast, and be at peace. If you had told a thousand lies--"

There was a sound--a warning--the clearing of a throat. The aunts
glanced up, and withered in their clothes--there stood the doctor, his
face a thunder-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing of his presence;
they lay locked together, heart to heart, steeped in immeasurable
content, dead to all things else. The physician stood many moments
glaring and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it, analyzing
it, searching out its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned to
the aunts. They came trembling to him, and stood humbly before him and
waited. He bent down and whispered:

"Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected from all excitement?
What the hell have you been doing? Clear out of the place!"

They obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor, serene,
cheery, clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with his arm about her
waist, petting her, and saying gentle and playful things to her; and she
also was her sunny and happy self again.

"Now, then;" he said, "good-by, dear. Go to your room, and keep away
from your mother, and behave yourself. But wait--put out your tong