University of Virginia Library

30. CHAPTER XXX.
HAUNTED HEARTS EXORCISED AND BLEST.

It was on one of these stormy mornings that George,
who had yesterday made a trip to the city, was unpacking
his chest in the kitchen, sorting out his sea-clothes
and distributing his gifts. Angie's reception of her
share of the latter had mortified and discouraged him
perhaps, for, without completing the task, he had pushed
the chest back against the wall, and gone to exhaust his
vexation in hammering away at some of his carpenter's
work, greatly to the disgust and annoyance of Hannah,
who, having seen a small cockroach escape from the
chest and run across the nicely sanded floor, was apprehensive
of more of such intruders, and was impatient to
have the chest emptied and transferred to the wood-shed.

So, at her entreaty, the task was resumed soon after
dinner. The wind had risen, and the weather grown
intensely cold, compelling all the household to keep snug
within the kitchen, and even to huddle round the fire.
George was in the midst of them, taking advice, chiefly

from Hannah, as to what should be done with this and
that article as he drew them from the chest; whether
this would ever be fit for wear again — whether that
might not as well be thrown away. At last he reached
the bottom of the chest, and sweeping his hand from
corner to corner to make sure that it was quite empty,
encountered some object which he had not expected to
find then and there, for he started, exclaimed, “Whist!
I had forgotten this was here;” then, half reluctantly,
brought to light and held up what appeared to be a
soiled and crumpled rag, the very counterpart to just such
a rag which had been similarly held up and displayed
in that very kitchen once before. “It's been a greater
traveller, I dare say, than its owner,” continued George,
as he smoothed out and restored to shape a knitted mitten,
“but we followed a different course and compass. The
way it's come back into my possession at last is the
greatest mystery, the most wonderful coincidence I ever
heard of;” and as he spoke, he could not refrain from
casting upon Angie a curious, not to say suspicious,
glance.

She was startled, evidently, and was gazing at this
new trophy with wonder and dismay; but George's
attention was instantly distracted from her face by
Hannah's eager cry, “The mate to my mitten, I vum!”
and, pouncing upon it like a hawk, the excited old woman
tried to snatch it from his hand.

“The mate to mine, begging your pardon, aunt Hannah,”
responded George, in the loud key which he always

used in addressing her, and at the same time, with playful
but firm defiance, retaining his grasp of the mitten.

“Yourn?” cried Hannah, incredulously, “how came
it yourn?”

“They're both mine, the pair of 'em,” replied George,
smiling at her want of faith. “If you've got the mate
to this, ma'am” (spoken facetiously), “I'll thank you
for it.”

“How came you by this, I say, George?” persisted
Hannah, with unmistakable earnestness.

“Why, it was mine in the beginning, — always mine,”
answered George, evasively. “If the mate's in your
possession, aunt Hannah, it's only fair you should account
for the property, and restore it to the rightful owner.”

“Listen, then, George,” said Hannah, with a solemnity
which at once awed her nephew, and with that stern,
rigid expression which her face always assumed when
memory led her back to the circumstances attending her
husband's murder, “I'll tell you how I come by it, an'
why I've kept it so long an' so well. I tore it off the
hand of one o' them villains that murdered your uncle
Baultie. I struggled with him till he flung me outside the
house. I would ha' hung on to him and strangled him
if I could; but when I thought I had him fast, he wriggled
like a sarpent till he got loose, and nothing was left
in my clutches but the mitten he'd slipped his hand
out on.”

“What! Bullet!” cried George, forgetting the caution
he had hitherto preserved on Angie's account.

“Then your story just fays into mine, aunt Hannah,
for it was among his traps, in the till of his private chest,
that I found a heap of gold and silver coins stowed away in
this very mitten. It never occurred to me till this minute,”
he continued, in eager soliloquy, “but I shouldn't wonder
if among that specie we could identify some of uncle
Baultie's old guineas or Spanish dollars. I handed the
cash over to government with the rest of the spoils.
They had 'em there in court, but I never thought of that
chance. Strange, now, if it should turn out so; it's
worth looking into. How it would corroborate Bly!”

“Do you mean to say, George,” demanded Hannah,
with that precise, emphatic enunciation which indicated
the intense difficulty her mind had in crediting this new
revelation, “do you mean to say that that 'ere mitten is
yourn, and that you never laid eyes on it from the time
you went to sea till it turned up in the way you tell
on?”

“I mean just that, aunt Hannah. That man, Bullet
—”

“That devil,” interposed Hannah, under her breath.

“Had 'em both,” continued George; “wore 'em, no
doubt. They were a decent pair of mittens once. I was
proud of 'em, I know. He lost one, it seems, the one
you've got, and this, being good for nothing else, he used
for a money bag. How he came by them in the first place,
Heaven only knows, I'm sure I don't;” and here George
stole a side glance at Angie, which might have been interpreted
to mean, It's just possible you do. “Any how,

as it was mine, I ventured to take possession of it as a
curiosity;” and George turned it over and scrutinized it
closely.

Margery trembled. Angie, as she stood watching him,
felt as if he were dissecting her conscience, and turning
her heart inside out.

“You're sure it's yourn?” reiterated Hannah.

“Sure? yes, indeed. Would have sworn to it any
where.”

“Geordie!” cried Hannah, with a sudden burst of
emotion, and staggering back to her chair she braced
herself against its arms as if her strength were forsaking
her, and she felt the need of some support, — “Geordie,
you send a cold shudder through me when you call them
mittens yourn. Day an' night, day an' night, for the
last five year, I've called the deepest curses down on the
man that them 'ere belonged ter, whoever in the world
he might be. I've prayed that the sun might scorch him,
an' the cold send a shiver through his bones; that hunger
might gnaw him, an' his tongue be parched for a
drop o' water; that he might cry out to cruel men to
help him, an' that they might be deaf to his prayers.
Geordie, when I think of all you've suffered by sea an'
land, it almost seems as if the Lord just took me at my
word?”

“The Lord's too just for that, aunt Hannah,” answered
George. “He would never have made me the
victim of curses that I didn't deserve, and that were not
meant for me. You needn't trouble yourself about
that.”

George spoke in a soothing, persuasive tone; but he
was none the less shocked at Hannah's acknowledgment
of the terrible spirit of hatred and revenge that had
rankled in her heart. There was no need for him or
any one to reproach her with it, however. Self-reproach
was working within her rapidly enough.

“You're right, George; the Lord makes no mistakes,”
replied Hannah, in the tone of one communing
with her own thoughts; “but, O, what mischief we
make in our ignorance! How we tempt his providence!
We'd better set still an' wait fur him; he comes
in his own good time, an' brings with him justice an'
judgment. It's well he kept me in the dark, wholly in
the dark. I'm thinkin', George,” — and, as this gleam
of thought broke upon her, she leaned forward in her
chair, shuddered, and laid her hand impressively on her
nephew's shoulder, — “I'm thinkin' how many times I've
looked at that leetle bit o' proof, an' felt as if all I needed
in this world was to know the name of its owner, an' so
bring him to the gallers;” and, rising as she spoke,
moved by a sudden impulse, she started towards the bed-room
to bring forth her treasure from its hiding-place.

“But you might have known,” called George just as
Hannah was retreating from the room; “you must have
been blind not to see —”

A sudden “O, hush-sh-sh!” in a terrified but half-suppressed
voice, at the same time a hand placed over his
mouth, another grasping at and endeavoring to cover
and hide the fatal initials marked with red on which his

finger was resting emphatically, — these were enough to
arrest his words and cause him to look up inquiringly
in the face of Angie, who, as he knelt beside the chest,
was bending over him, her attitude, her voice, her
countenance imploring him to refrain.

“Why hush!” he ejaculated, alarmed by her impetuosity
and puzzled at her warning.

“O, because, because — she” — pointing towards Hannah;
“she doesn't susp— She never knew —”

“Knew what?” cried George.

“O, nothing; no matter, — only, — the letters; don't
show her, — there, she's coming!” and her brief and
imperfect expostulation interrupted by Hannah's return,
Angie retreated abruptly and resumed her former place
and attitude.

“Just alike! a complete pair!” was George's comment,
as, claiming Hannah's mitten (he took care not to
relinquish his own), he laid the two together, the red
letters (scarcely red now, time had faded them so
much) adroitly turned inwards and concealed. He had
understood enough of Angie's expostulation for that.

Hannah, who, thanks to her deafness and her self-absorbed
state of mind, had heard and suspected nothing
of the dialogue and pantomime which had taken
place while her back was turned, looked on through her
spectacles. “That's a fact, — not a doubt on't!” was
her confirmatory verdict; then she stretched out her
hand to take the mittens and compare them herself.

George held them up before her, drew out the thumbs,

displayed the exact measurements. But that would not
suffice. She must handle them herself. Reluctantly
submitting to necessity, George yielded them. She
smoothed them out slowly, meditatively. She even examined
the width of the seaming at the wrist; “two an'
three,” she muttered, counting the ribbed stitches of
one; “two an' three,” as turning the pair over, she
examined the opposite wrist. Then she handed them
back to George, and he, for safe keeping, hastily put them
in his pocket. She had satisfied herself completely, but
she had not separated them — had not detected the
letters.

The accident of her doing so, or failing to do so, made
all the difference of her mastering the secret which had
for five years moulded the lives of Margery and Angie,
or of her going down to her grave in total ignorance
of it. Chance, — shall we not say Providence? — determined
the matter; for, had the case been reversed, I
am afraid that in spite of all the lessons of forbearance
which Providence was teaching her, she could never from
that time to the day of her death have forborne occasionally
twitting the other two with their injustice to George.
“Women,” if it is fair to quote from so prejudiced
an old bachelor as Van Hausen, “do peck at one
another so.”

To what extent her own suspicious of her nephew
might, under like circumstances, have been carried, it is
impossible to say. Now that light had been thrown
upon the whole transaction, she doubtless acquitted

herself of any such fallibility, as human nature, untested
by temptation, generally does acquit itself. This was
evident from the tenor of what followed.

“That's right, put it out o' my sight forevermore,”
she said, as she watched her cherished bit of proof disappear
within the depths of George's pocket. “It's been
fuel to my wrath long enough. It's lucky I kept it so
snug an' miser-like. I never should ha' found out it was
yourn, Geordie, but other folks might have; an' who
knows what it might ha' led ter? Next thing, like 's not,
people 'ud ha' been mistrustin' you coveted your uncle
Baultie's gold, an' had a hand in killin' him, that the
inheritance might be yourn. I never would ha' mistrusted
yer, my boy, not I,” she added, hastily. “You
needn't think that (there must have been something in
George's face that prompted her to this assurance); but
seeing you was missin' so soon arterwards, there are people
in this world who'd ha' been wicked enough to think
yer did it, if they hadn't accused yer on't outright. But
I thank God,” she added, fervently, “that shortened the
hand of a foolish old woman, and took the cause o' justice
into his own. We miserable critturs do a deal of evil
an' mischief in our lives; but we little know how much
we're saved from doin' by a power stronger than our own
will. From this day forth, an' fur the sake o' this great
deliverance, I'll never try again to right my own wrongs.
`Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”'

With which solemn ejaculation, uttered with hands
clasped and eyes upraised, Hannah turned and left the

room, perhaps to hide the emotions which made her
knees knock together, possibly to sink upon those knees
in the privacy of the little bed-room, and confirm her
grand resolution in prayer to God; for Hannah, though
a stern and an erring, was none the less a devout, religionist.

And those wicked people to whom she had made such
cutting, though accidental allusion! There were but two
in the world; two vile creatures, to whose consciences her
reproach struck home, and there they stood condemned.

Yes, there was no escape for them.

“She never knew — she never suspected!” exclaimed
George, starting impetuously to his feet the moment the
door had closed upon Hannah; “but you, mother? you,
Angie? you suspected? you believed! — Good Heaven!
that's too much! that can't be!”

Margery's hands, those eloquent hands, were raised in
supplication, her shadowy form bent back, almost crouching,
as if she were striving to ward off a dreaded blow.
Angie's breast heaved, her face was turned away.

“It is though! it is! You did me that terrible wrong,
both of you. I see it!” he cried, seizing Margery's
culprit hands, at the same time forcibly turning Angie's
face towards him, and as he thus held both at arm's
length, compelling them to meet the gaze which shot
rapidly from one to the other.

Then he groaned, for there was no denial in either
countenance, and he knew all.

“Tell me!” he now exclaimed, and with fresh vehemence,

“I must know the truth. Tell me, did you believe
me a murderer, — my uncle's murderer?”

Margery only echoed his own groan. “Don't ask me,
Geordie,” was the agonized ejaculation of Angie.

“Your own son!” to his mother. “The man who had
loved you so!” to Angie. “It was too bad, by Heaven!
it was too bad!”

“It was,” murmured Angie. “It was.”

“Geordie,” faltered Margery, “I never owned it; I
never breathed it, not even to myself, not even to God in
my prayers.”

“Nor I,” sobbed Angie; “nor I.”

“But you believed it,” he cried with bitterness; “you
believed me an unnatural, cruel, blood-thirsty villain.
My last prayer to both of you when I went away was, to
think the best of me whatever happened, and you have
thought the worst. I'd better never have come back.
I'd better have wasted away in slavery, or been buried at
the bottom of the sea, than to have lived to learn this.
O mother! O Angie!” — and releasing them both from
his grasp so suddenly that they staggered, so indignantly
that the act seemed to imply that he had done with them
forever, he caught his cap from the table and dashed out
of the house.

His usually ruddy face was white with anger or
wounded feeling, probably a mingling of both; they
knew that the bitter reproaches he had uttered were but
a faint indication of the storm of emotion that was seething
within him; that his tender, loving nature was wounded

to its innermost depths, — such depths as only exist in
hearts so trusting and affectionate as his, and that he had
rushed from their presence simply as a precaution against
the further explosion that threatened.

It is not much to see a man who is habitually ill-tempered,
violent, or pugnacious, irritated and touched to the
quick. One may even become so familiar with his exhibitions
of passion and wrath as to view them only with
indifference or contempt. But let the peaceable, the confiding,
the manly soul be roused to indignation or moved
to anguish by a deep sense of injustice or injury, and
whose heart is not sympathetically stirred? Who, having
wronged such a one does not feel how irreparable is
the injury done, how hopeless the attempt to heal a
wound so deep?

Such was the sympathy, such the hopelessness with
which the thoughts of Margery and Angie followed George
in his flight. They did not exchange a word. There
was nothing to be said. They did not even exchange
glances. They shrank from the conviction written in
each other's faces. There was no longer any secret between
them, any counsel to take, any thing to be done.

Except to wait, wait and see what came of it. How
long the hours seemed! for hours passed on and he did
not return. As twilight and night came on, shadowy and
bitter cold, what shadows of suspense, what cold shudders
of dread haunted their aching hearts! Will he
come back at all? Will he speak to us? Will he forgive
us? Will he ever love us after this? Such were

the hard questions which kept up a continual knocking at
the door of these haunted hearts, and a desponding voice
within was constantly answering, — Never.

Hannah's ignorance of what had transpired was certainly
a subject for gratitude. She wondered when she
returned to the kitchen what had become of George; and
when they told her that he had taken his cap and gone out,
she wondered that he should go out such a cold afternoon.
She wondered still more that he had left his sea-chest
there in the middle of the floor, in spite of all the fears
she had expressed about the cockroaches. And after she
had exhausted herself with wondering that he did not
come home to tea, that he should be so fond of gadding,
and so indifferent to fireside joys (Hannah, be it here remarked,
was always jealous of his leaving the house for
an hour), she still further evidenced her discontent by
going to bed a little earlier than usual, muttering as she
went, “If he chooses to stay out until ten o'clock at
night” (it was only a quarter to nine), “he can't expect
folks as old as I am to set up fur him.”

He did not expect nor wish it. Not long after nine, the
hour when he knew she invariably retired, his hand was
on the door-latch; and as he lifted it, the hearts of Margery
and Angie, who sat watching and waiting by the
fireside, leaped up also, and instinctively, moved by a
common impulse, they rose to meet him, as if he had returned
after weeks of absence.

A stranger would have thought he had — for he walked
straight up to his mother and embraced her tenderly;

then drew Angie towards him, lifted her face gently,
solemnly, just as he did when he parted from her so
many years ago, and kissed her in the same spot on her
forehead. Then the young girl knew she was forgiven;
and the old woman, clinging to her son, felt that she
was blest.

With what generous protective love he now gazed from
one to the other, his left arm twined round and supporting
his mother, his right hand clasping one of Angie's!
What a different expression his face wore from that
which had distorted and clouded it a few hours ago!
How serene he was! What a depth of tenderness was
reflected in his mild blue eyes! What a victory he had
won over himself!

Yes, won over and for himself, God helping. There
are some natures in the world that, like the cloudy sky
the storm-lashed ocean, have a power and depth by means
of which their atmosphere is cleared, their serenity regained,
without foreign aid, through their own inherent
forces. George's was one of those great souls that
needed only to be left to itself a while. No earthly power
had helped him, — he had simply come to his better self;
and when he spoke, when he called them both by name,
there was a touching melody and pathos in his deep,
earnest tones. “Dear mother, dear Angie,” he said,
“I have come back to tell you that I've got over it. It
was a great shock, but I've been thinking about it. I
understand it better now; you mustn't mind my feeling it
so much at first. I couldn't help it, you know. But

it's all right now; we'll never speak of it, we'll never
think of it again!”

He would have been content to let the matter rest here
— but not they; they were far from content. With one
voice they both cried, O George, can you forgive us?
are you sure you can, and will?”

“Mother, Angie,” he resumed, in reply, “when God's
hand was heavy upon me, when I saw in each day's starvation,
and misery, and chains a just punishment for my
wasted youth, my ingratitude, my hard, revengeful heart,
I vowed again and again to pardon my fellow-creatures
every injury, known or unknown, as I hoped and prayed
God would some day have pity on and pardon me. He
has mercifully heard my prayer — Heaven forbid that I
should defraud him or wrong my own soul by taking back
the vow!”

Awed by the solemnity of his voice and words, his
hearers trembled and remained silent.

“Do you think,” he earnestly continued, “that when
toiling under an African sun I pined for one breath of
Jersey air, when there was no heaven to my mind like
the heaven of home, when I would gladly have died if I
could but take my mother's hand in mine (and he pressed
the withered hand), or have one more look at the face I
loved best in the world (and he gazed fondly into Angie's
eyes), do you think then I asked myself — what or how
much I was to you? No! the less the better, for your
sakes; I only knew, I only felt, that you were life, happiness,
every thing to me.”

“And now,” he exclaimed with fresh fervor, the sobs
of the two women alone interrupting him,—“now that I
am a free man, and at home once more, with you in my
arms, mother, with you, Angie, by my side, do you think
I can have it in my heart to reproach you because, when
I gave you reason to believe nothing but evil of me, you
laid more guilt to my door than I really deserved? What
had I ever been or done that should save me from the
suspicion or disgrace that must light on somebody's
head? Nothing; it was all the other way. I had been
a good-for-nothing scapegrace, to say the least. But let
bygones be bygones; and, please God, for the rest of
my days I'll be so much better son to you, mother,
(and he gave her a filial hug), so much worthier friend
to you, if you'll let me, Angie (and he laid his hand protectingly,
beseechingly, on her head), that if fate parts us
again I'll leave behind me no dark memories to poison
your faith in me and blacken my good name.”

They tried, amid their sobs, to protest against this
humility of his, to contradict his self-aspersions, but it
was of no use. As usual, his generous nature had
taught him to look away from the wrong he had suffered
and remember only the wrong he had done, and, that he
might forgive them with a better grace, he persisted in
taking all the blame on his own shoulders, — those broad
shoulders of his that were always ready to bear every
body's burdens.

And when they reiterated their assurances that they
would have trusted him, that they had trusted him, more

entirely than any other man living; that nothing but
the evidence of their own senses had deceived
them, he interrupted them with, “I know — I know —
the evidence was damning, — nobody can deny that;
— my rage against uncle Baultie, my desperation and
threats of vengeance, my skulking off as I did at dead of
night, and that mitten of your own knitting, mother, —
with my initials on it, that you marked yourself, Angie!”
then, in a tone of eager curiosity, he added, abruptly,
“Who ripped out the mark?”

“I,” answered Angie, penitently, mortified as she thus
acknowledged the suspicion which that act implied, — “I,”
— that first night when she was asleep.

“I thought so. Bless you, Angie; whatever your own
suspicions were, you saved me from public degradation
and shame. Aunt Hannah may say what she will now,
but with such evidence against me, and her wrath to
back it, I shouldn't have stood much chance; she'd have
blasted my good name forever. And her curses on the
owner of her bit of proof, — you were continually hearing
them and trembling! Good Heavens! you must
have been glad when you learned that I was in my
grave — a Judas's grave, though it was!”

They did not deny it, — they assented to it, if silence
could be so interpreted.

“And when I came back so unexpectedly, when you saw
me in the court-house, when Bly stood up to testify, did
you think then —? Of course you must have! You did!
both of you. Your panic of fear, mother, when you

rushed into my arms! Your cry of terror, Angie,” he
exclaimed, as one recollection after another flashed upon
him. “Did you think that fatal finger of his was pointed
at me?”

“How could I help it?” moaned Margery, “how could
I help it, Geordie, when my burstin' heart was pintin'
the same way in spite o' me?”

“He had promised me,” cried Angie, “and I believed
him. I told him you were dead, and he promised — you
were alive again, and I thought it was all over with you.
I didn't know what I did, I was mad with horror and fear!”

“He promised! — what, Bly? it was you, then, that
deceived him, being yourself deceived. I thought it was
Polly, poor Polly Stein; every body thought so.”

“No, it was not Polly. She was in the court that day;
I saw her there myself; but she was not in the prison;
she had nothing to do with it. It was I that planned
all that mischief. Providence overruled my folly and
blindness, but God knows I did it for the best.”

“Brave girl! of course you did it for the best. I
should be the last man to question that. You did it for
the salvation of my good name. You tried to silence
him for my sake. Tell me about it — tell me all.”

She told him as well as she could, in broken phrases
and with a stammering tongue, he and Margery mute with
wonder at her courage and the ready tact with which she
had improved her opportunity. It was reserved for Bly
when he should know the whole (and in justice to him,
he was made at last to understand how unintentional was

the deception that had been practised upon him), to dwell
with rude eloquence upon the love and devotion with
which she had plead her cause; a love and devotion which
the poor outcast depicted in the more glowing colors
because to him they were things new and strange. But
for the present the simple fact of the effort she had made
in his behalf was enough for George, — was more than
he could at once credit or comprehend.

“Good God!” he devoutly ejaculated, when she had
finished, “what things this dear girl has done, and dared,
and suffered for my sake! My share has been nothing
to it. And yet you talk of forgiveness,” he added, in a
chiding tone, to his hearers, “as if I had any thing to
forgive; I, whom it becomes rather to think of thanks,
not for all you have done and tried to do to save and protect
my good name (though I owe you much for that),
but for the love that outlived all, — that's what touches me,
mother, — that's what I find it hard to believe in, Angie,”
— and his voice was stifled and broken with emotion.

“And your cry, Angie, that terrible cry in the court-room,”
he continued, with difficulty mastering his agitation,
and only by a great effort bringing his mind to a
realization of the truth that was dawning upon him; “it
was not for him, then, after all?”

“For him? For whom?” asked Angie, in surprise,
and looking inquiringly into George's face.

“For Josselyn — Bullet, I mean. I — I thought” —

“O George!” was the reproachful exclamation with
which she interrupted and relieved his hesitation, “did

you suppose I could ever care for such a wretch after
that night?”

“What night, Angie?”

“The night that you bade me goodby, George, — the
night that was the beginning of our five years' misery.”

“I feared — I mistrusted — O, what shall I say? In
a word, then, I was blind — I was a fool, Angie — but I
see! — I see now!” (her blushes and tears at this moment
were greater telltales than her tongue), “and for
the future I will be a wiser, and you may believe me, a
happier man. Dearest mother, dearest Angie, if your
hearts have been so true to a poor fellow in spite of the
crimes of which you have believed him guilty, I am sure
you will not love him less now that his innocence is
proved. O, such love pays for all! Only forget the
past, mother, just as if it had never been; only keep on
loving me, darling girl (he had drawn the darling girl
so close to him that he whispered this last petition in
her ear), and I for one shall not think all I have suffered,
and ten times more, if need be, too great a price to pay
for so much happiness.”

And releasing them both from the embrace in which
he had clasped them as he spoke, he turned hastily away
to hide the not unmanly tears which he could no longer
restrain.

Margery drew a long sigh — one of those sighs of
relief, so familiar to her acquaintances of former days,
but latterly never indulged in — a deep expressive sigh,
on whose breath the accumulated burden of years seemed
to be exhaled and dissipated.

“What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits
towards me?” she fervently exclaimed. Then, for the
first time in many years, assuming the prerogative which
became her as head of the household, and instinctively
fulfilling to the letter the pious custom of her husband, —
since his death fallen into disuse, — she said, authoritatively,
“Let us consult God's holy word. My son,
read the one hundred and sixteenth psalm.”

George reverently took the old family Bible from its
shelf and obeyed her.

Then the old woman fell on her knees — those knees
that never again were to tremble with apprehension of
human wrath, and folded together in peace those hands
no longer the index to a troubled soul. Then the tongue
that for years had cleaved to the roof of her mouth, was
loosed, the voice that horror and dread had well nigh
palsied broke forth mellow and clear, the gift that had
once made Margery Rawle the leader of church and
prayer-meeting descended mightily upon her, and George,
and Angie, feeling their souls taught of the Spirit, followed
where she led the way, and united in the offering
of praise and thanksgiving which her inspired tongue
laid on the altar of the Most High.

And thus these hearts, haunted so long by painful
memories and mighty dread, mercifully released at last,
exorcised, purified, blest, were rendered unto Heaven
voluntary sacrifices, consecrated gifts, — the only acceptable
sacrifices, the only worthy gifts, which Humanity can
render unto God for all his benefits.