“Willie was my cousin—­your cousin,” said Mary, resting her foot upon the bit of board which stood at the head of the little graves.  George understood her wishes, and when they left the place, a handsome marble slab marked the spot where the father and his infant son were buried.

* * * * *

Bewildered, and unable to comprehend a word, Sally listened while Mary told her of the relationship between them; but the mists which for years had shrouded her reason were too dense to be suddenly cleared away; and when Mary wept, winding her arms around her neck and calling her “Aunt;” and when the elegant Mrs. Campbell, scarcely less bewildered than Sally herself, came forward addressing her as “sister,” she turned aside to Mrs. Mason, asking in a whisper “what had made them crazy.”

But when Mary spoke of little Willie’s grave, and the tree which overshadowed it, of the green prairie and cottage by the brook, once her western home, Sally listened, and at last one day, a week or two after her arrival in Boston, she suddenly clasped her hands closely over her temples, exclaiming, “It’s come!  It’s come!  I remember now,—­the large garden,—­the cross old man,—­the dead mother,—­the rosy-cheeked Ella I loved so well—­”

“That was my mother,—­my mother,” interrupted Mary.

For a moment Sally regarded her intently, and then catching her in her arms, cried over her, calling her, “her precious child,” and wondering she had never noticed how much she was like Ella.

“And don’t you remember the baby Jane?” asked Mrs Campbell, who was present.

“Perfectly,—­perfectly,” answered Sally.  “He died, and you came in a carriage; but didn’t cry,—­nobody cried but Mary.”

It was in vain that Mary tried to explain to her that Mrs. Campbell was her sister,—­once the baby Jane.  Sally was not to be convinced.  To her Jane and the little Alice were the same.  There was none of her blood in Mrs. Campbell’s veins, “or why,” said she, “did she leave us so long in obscurity, me and my niece, Mrs. George Moreland, Esq.!”

This was the title which she always gave Mary when speaking of her, while to Ella, who occasionally spent a week in her sister’s pleasant home, she gave the name of “little cipher,” as expressing exactly her opinion of her.  Nothing so much excited Sally, or threw her into so violent a passion, as to have Ella call her aunt.

“If I wasn’t her kin when I wore a sixpenny calico,” said she, “I certainly am not now that I dress in purple and fine linen.”

When Sally first went to Boston, George procured for her the best possible medical advice, but her case was of so long standing that but little hope was entertained of her entire recovery.  Still every thing was done for her that could be done, and after a time she became far less boisterous than formerly, and sometimes appeared perfectly rational for days.  She still retained her taste for literature, and nothing but George’s firmness and decision prevented her from sending off the manuscript of her grammar, which was now finished.  It was in vain that he told her she was not now obliged to write for a living, as he had more than enough for her support.