Abram Handy, inspired with religious fervor during the revival, was also inspired with the twin passion—­love—­to visit Temperance, and begged her, with so much eloquence, to marry him before his cow should calve, that she consented, and he was happy.  He spent the Sunday evenings with her, coming after conference meeting, hymn-book in hand.  She was angry and ashamed, if I happened to see them sitting in the same chair, and singing, in a quavering voice, “Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” and continued morose for a week, in consequence.

“What will Veronica do without me?” she said.  “I vow I wish Abram Handy would keep himself out of my way; who wants him?”

“She will visit you, and so shall I.”

“Certain true, will you, really?”

“If you will promise to return our visits, and leave Abram at home, for a week now and then.”

“Done.  I can mend your things and look after Mis Morgeson.  Your mother is not the woman she was, and you and Veronica haven’t a mite of faculty.  What you are all coming to is more than I can fathom.”

“Who will fill your place?”

“I don’t want to brag, but you wont find a soul in Surrey to come here and live as I have lived.  You will have to take a Paddy; the Paddies are spreading, the old housekeeping race is going.  Hepsey and I are the last of the Mohicans, and Hepsey is failing.”

She was right, we never found her equal, and when she went, in May, a Celtic dynasty came in.  We missed her sadly.  Verry refused to be comforted.  Symptoms of disorganization appeared everywhere.

In the summer Helen visited Surrey.  Her enlivening gayety was the means of our uniting about her.  She was never tired of Veronica’s playing, nor of our society; so we must stay where she and the piano were.  We trimmed the parlor with flowers every day.  Veronica transferred some of her favorite books to the round table, and privately sent for a set of flower vases.  When they came, she said we must have a new carpet to match them, and although mother protested against it, she was loud in her admiration when she saw the handsome white Brussels, thickly covered with crimson roses.  Helen’s introduction proved an astonishing incentive; we set a new value on ourselves.  I never saw so much of Veronica as at that time; her health improved with her temper.  She threw us into fits of laughter with her whimsical talk, never laughing herself, but enjoying the effect she produced.  To please her, Helen changed her style of dress, and bought a dress at Milford, which Veronica selected and made.  The trying on of this dress was the means of her discovering the letters on Helen’s arm, which never ceased to be a source of interest.  She asked to see them every day afterward, and touched them with her fingers, as if they had some occult power.

“You think her strange, do you not?” I asked Helen.

“She has genius, but will be a child always.”