and silently apostrophized the dead
woman at his feet, telling her that though he was about to bring a new
mistress to the home where she had reigned supreme, he should not forget
her, and should so far as was consistent, see that all her ideas were
carried out, especially as far as his health was concerned. Then be
walked thoughtfully away, whispering to himself;

"Martha was a very good and excellent woman, but I loved Hanny first,
and God forgive me if it is wrong to say it, I think I love her the
best."

Then he went and told Miss McPherson, who called him and Hannah fools,
to think of marrying at their time of life, but said she was satisfied
if they were. Then he told Lucy Grey, who congratulated him warmly and
was sure he would be happy. Then he told Bessie, who cried at first
because her Aunt Hannah was not to live with her, and then entered heart
and soul into the affair and became as much interested in the wedding
and the wedding outfit as if the bride-elect had been a young girl in
her teens instead or an elderly woman in her fifties. Then he told his
senior warden, who, having himself been married three times, had nothing
to say, but hurried home with the news, which was all over Allington by
the next day, and was received differently, according to the different
natures of the receivers. Some were very glad, and predicted that the
rector would be far happier with Hannah than he had been with Martha,
while others wondered what that worthy woman would say if she knew that
another was to fill her place, and _all_ calculated the ages of the
respective parties, making _him_ out younger than he was and _her_ a
great deal older. But neither he nor she ever knew what was said, and
they would not have cared if they had, for both were supremely happy and
thankful for the peace and blessedness which had crowned their later
life. Fifty and even sixty is not so very old, at least to those who
have reached it, and Hannah neither looked nor felt old when in her
becoming traveling dress of seal brown she stood up in the parlors of
her brother's house on Beacon street and was made Mrs. Charles Sanford.

This was early in February, and six weeks before, on Christmas Eve,
there had come to that same house on Beacon street a little black-eyed,
black-haired boy, as unlike either Bessie or Grey as a baby well could
be.

"He is not like any one I have ever seen of your family," the old nurse
said, when she brought the sturdy f