to Dr. Lee.  Then she went about with set lips, doing the last sordid things that death brings in its wake; doing them as she had seen her mother do before her.  She threw away the husks in Eva’s under mattress and put fresh ones in; she emptied the feathers from the feather bed and pillows and aired them in the sun while she washed the ticking; she scrubbed the paint in the sick-room, and in between her tasks learned from Clarissa Perry the whole process of bringing up babies by hand.

That was three years ago.  At first David had sent ten dollars a month from his slender earnings, never omitting it save for urgent reasons.  He evidently thought of the twins as “company” for his sister and their care a pleasant occupation, since she had “almost” a living income; taking in a few coats to make, just to add an occasional luxury to the bare necessities of life provided by her mother’s will.

His letters were brief, dispirited, and infrequent, but they had not ceased altogether till within the last few months, during which Letty’s to him had been returned from Boston with “Not found” scribbled on the envelopes.

The firm in whose care Letty had latterly addressed him simply wrote, in answer to her inquiries, that Mr. Gilman had not been in their employ for some time and they had no idea of his whereabouts.

The rest was silence.

[Illustration]

V

A good deal of water had run under Beulah Bridge since Letty Boynton had sat at her window on a December evening unconsciously furnishing copy and illustration for a Christmas card; yet there had been very few outward changes in the village.  Winter had melted into spring, burst into summer, faded into autumn, lapsed into winter again,—­the same old, ever-recurring pageant in the world of Nature, and the same procession of incidents in the neighborhood life.

The harvest moon and the hunter’s moon had come and gone; the first frost, the family dinners and reunions at Thanksgiving, the first snowfall; and now, as Christmas approached, the same holiday spirit was abroad in the air, slightly modified as it passed by Mrs. Popham’s mournful visage.

One or two babies had swelled the census, giving the minister hope of a larger Sunday-School; one or two of the very aged neighbors had passed into the beyond; and a few romantic and enterprising young farmers had espoused wives, among them Osh Popham’s son.

The manner of their choice was not entirely to the liking of the village.  Digby Popham had married into the rival church and as his betrothed was a masterful young lady it was feared that Digby would leave Mr. Larrabee’s flock to worship with his wife.  Another had married without visible means of support, a proceeding always to be regretted by thoroughly prudent persons over fifty; and the third, Deacon Todd’s eldest son, had somehow or other met a siren from Vermont and insisted on wedding her when there were plenty of marriageable girls in Beulah.