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THAT night the coroner's jury found their verdict,
helped thereto chiefly by the testimony of Abner
and Job.

Mad, being put under oath, contradicted himself so confusedly,
that he had been unceremoniously set aside, and committed
to jail. Mr. Murk had not yet been arrested, though
the officers were still out for him. Guy — we know where
he was already. These three were charged, in the verdict,
with the murder.

Doctor Biddikin was kept in custody for a day or two; but
his wits seemed to have deserted him. Since he was carried
out of the court, he had not spoken a word; and he was
finally discharged.

And Pelt was put under the daisies; and Guy, not so
happy, lay in prison. A murderer? Spirit communion, love
of humanity, world's reform, — and was this the fruit?

So said the ministers who preached about it; so said the
editors who wrote about it. And it was curious now to note

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how many oracular old smokers and sagacious grandmothers
had, from the first, foreseen how it would be.

But there was one who had foreseen much, and who uttered
now no vain “I told you so!” — who accused no one, and
complained not, though the cup of bitterness was at her
lips.

Only once, when she had been watching long, thinking of
her dying babe, of its father in jail, and of the still more cruel
bars of error and wrong that kept him from her, she cried out
with irrepressible anguish, —

“You, Mrs. Brandle, believe in God; you believe in ministering
angels: but are there not wicked spirits that come to
destroy?”

“No doubt,” said the widow, “there's some such. It's
with sperits, I s'pose, as 'tis with men and women: there's
all sorts. But though there may be some that's bad, there's
others more bright and glorious than we can consave of or
imagine. It depends on ourselves which shall come to us.
When they make us happier and better, we may be sure they
are good sperits.” And the widow's face shone like a sign
of the heavenly influences.

But Guy was not a bad man: why had he been so misled?
Lucy implored to know.

“We can't expect always to see into the ways of Providence,”
the widow continued. “And it don't do to have
too narrer idees on any subject. It's with idees as 'tis with
cloth: wide will wear, but narrer will tear. And one thing,

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my child, is sartin: God is over all. He permits what seems
to us evil, for the final good that's to come on't.”

“Oh, if I could only believe that as I used to think I believed
it!” said Lucy.

“I know,” — the widow's voice quivered, — “it's a great
deal easier to talk than 'tis to live up to our faith when the
time o' trial comes. But I've had afflictions myself; and I
speak what I've larnt. If we are prayerful and true, no
suffering can happen to us that ain't for our good. My dear
child,” she added, her eyes glimmering with tears, “I want
you to realize this, and bear it in mind; for you'll need it to
support ye in what you've got to go through. And, in the
midst of all, I want you to remember you've got at least one
airthly friend that never'll desart ye!” She wiped her eyes.
“There now, dear, let me take her; and you lie down, and
see if you can't ketch a little nap.”

Under the widow's soothing influence, and with Mrs.
Hedge's presence and sympathy, Lucy found strength to pass
through the days when Guy was in prison, and her father
was wasting with fever and evil counsel in her aunt's house,
and little Agnes was fading away. Worn out with grief and
watching, she would sleep, or seem to sleep; for often she
would lie awake for hours with closed eyes, never stirring,
scarcely breathing even, except that, at long intervals, a deep
sigh would heave.

What were her thoughts at such times? Over what endless
gloomy flood hovered the tempest-driven dove of her

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soul, finding no rest for its weary wings, no branch of
hope?

One day, when she lay thus, Mrs. Brandle uttered a stifled
cry. She had been holding the living babe upon her lap,
when suddenly she discovered that no living babe was there.
One of God's glorious miracles had been wrought in mystery
and silence. There lay the exquisite mould of clay; but
the spirit that had given it form and being was gone. Agnes
was among the angels.

“Blessed be the name of the Lord!” murmured the
widow.

Lucy rose, and knelt down by the pale corpse. She uttered
first one piercing wail, wringing her hands. Then she
calmed herself, gazed at it in silence with unutterable woe
and anguish, kissed it many times passionately, and said, —

“It is better so! — better so, my darling! God grant I
may follow soon!”

She took it to her heart, as if she would have kept it ever
warm there; and sat with it long, feeding her eyes and soul
upon it. And none spoke to her.

But at length Mrs. Brandle came, and, gently opening her
arms, took the little thing away, and put a white robe upon
it; and Archy brought flowers; and it was laid upon a pillow
by the window, where it seemed asleep and smiling.
The window was open, and the birds were singing; for the
afternoon was pleasant.

Then Jehiel came in, leading little Teddy. Jehiel, strong
man as he was, stood and wept like a child at the sad

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spectacle; but Teddy, though he had shown through all
the baby's sickness a strange sympathy, hushing his play for
its sake, watching by it sorrowfully, — Teddy looked up with
a wise spiritual smile.

“Little baby is happy now, ain't she?” he said in his
simple innocence.

Archy worked all night making a coffin; and the next day
was the burial.

No bell was tolled; no minister was present; no throng
of mourners came to weep with Lucy. It was as she wished.
The world kept aloof, — the respectable, virtuous world.
Yet Mrs. Brandle and Archy kept not aloof; and Hannah
and her husband led the wondering little Teddy to the grave
of the pretty babe he loved, and could not be reconciled to
have put away in the dark ground. Besides these, and the
sexton with his shovel and hoe, there was none to keep Lucy
company; and, oh, to think Guy was not there! and that
her father had never seen her babe, and could never see it!

The afternoon was beautiful: it was early June. The
grass about the graves was sprinkled thick with buttercups
and golden dandelions, with sweet shadows here and there of
fringy tamaracks and young balsams. The sunshine flashed
bright on the gray-lettered headstones, and nestled warm in
the tender leafage of the larches; and the finches sang deliciously.
And Teddy, after reasoning about it, looked up
with a gleam of hope when he saw the faces around him sorrowful,
and said, —

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“But the angels will be glad; won't they, mamma?”

At that, Archy was taken, carried beyond himself, and
made to utter a prayer full of fervor and solemn gladness;
inspired — so it seemed — by an angel choir, in whose arms
the spirit-babe had found its heavenly rest. Consoling faith,
could Lucy have but believed.

Then the imperturbable sexton laid off his coat in a business-like
way, and commenced shovelling smartly, heedless of
the sound of the plunging and rattling gravel, falling heavily,
not upon the little coffin only and the dead babe, but
also upon the mother's buried heart.

The turf had been opened under a mountain-ash, where
there was but one other grave.

“I didn't think,” said Lucy, “when they buried my
mother, that my own little baby would be brought here
next!”

p730-488

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