“Isn’t he a beauty?” she asked, pressing her lips upon the wrinkled forehead.  “A boy, too, and looks so much like Charlie, but—­” and her soft, blue eyes seemed more beautiful than ever with the maternal love-shining for them, “I shall not call him Charlie, nor yet John, though mother’s heart is set on the latter name.  I can’t.  I loved my brother dearly, and never so much as now that he is dead, but my baby boy must not bear his name, and so I have chosen Hugh, Hugh Richards.  I know it will please you both,” and she glanced archly at Alice, who blushingly kissed the little boy who was to bear the name dearest to her of all others.

Hugh—­they talked of him a while, and then Anna spoke of Irving Stanley, expressing her fears that she could not see him to thank him for his kindness and forbearance to her erring brother.

“He must be noble and good,” she said, then turning to Adah, she continued:  “You were with him a year.  You must know him well.  Do you like him?”

“Yes,” and Adah’s face was all ablaze, as the simple answer dropped from her lips.

For a moment Anna regarded her intently, then her eyes were withdrawn and her white hand beat the counterpane softly, but nothing more was said of Irving Stanley then.

The next day near the sunsetting, they buried the dead soldier, Mrs. Richards and Adah standing side by side as the body was lowered to its last resting place, the older leaning upon the younger for support, and feeling as she went back to her lonely home and heard the merry laugh of little Willie in the hall that she was glad her son had married the young girl, who, now that John was gone forever from her sight began to be very dear to her as his wife, the Lily whom he had loved so much.  In the dusky twilight of that night when alone with Adah she told her as much, speaking sadly of the past, which she regretted, and wishing she had never objected to receiving the girl about whom John wrote so lovingly.

“Had I done differently he might have been living now, and you might have been spared much pain, but you’ll forgive me.  I’m an old woman, I am breaking fast, and soon shall follow my boy, but while I live I wish for peace, and you must love me, Lily, because I was his mother.  Let me call you Lily, as he did,” and the hand of her who had conceded so much rested entreatingly upon the bowed head of the young girl beside her.  There was no acting there, Adah knew, and clasping the trembling hand she involuntarily whispered: 

“I will love you, mother, I will.”

“And stay with me, too?” Mrs. Richards continued, her voice choked with the sobs she could not repress, when she heard herself called mother by the girl she had so wronged.  “You will stay with him, Lily.  Anna is gone, my other daughters are old.  We are lonely in this great house.  We need somebody young to cheer our solitude, and you will stay, as mistress, if you choose, or as a petted, youngest daughter.”