“Oh, yes, marm, but he says he can’t live without me!  He hain’t never been married; I’m fifty-four, and he’s the same age.”

“Jane,” said Clara, “I guess it will be all right; let him stay with you.”

“How it looks,” interrupted Jane; “they’ll all know him.”

“Never mind.  The Home is a sort of public institution now; let him stay, and in three weeks I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Get right up off this floor, you angel woman, and lemme set on the sofy with you,” said Jane.

Louis and I left the room, and after an hour or so Jane went over the hill, and Aunt Hildy stepped as firmly as before she came.  Poor Aunt Hildy, this was the sorrow she had borne.  I was glad she knew they were dead, for uncertainty is harder to bear than certainty.  I wondered how it came that I should never have known and dimly remembered something about some one’s going away strangely, when I was a little girl.  My mother had, like all Aunt Hildy’s friends, kept her sorrow secret, and she told me it was a rare occurrence for Aunt Hildy to mention it even to her, whom she had always considered her best friend.

If Jane had not herself been interested, it would have leaked out probably, but these two women, differing so strangely from each other, had held their secrets close to their hearts, and for twenty-five long years had nightly prayed for the wanderers.

Aunt Hildy’s husband was a strange man; their boy inherited his father’s peculiarities, and when he went away with him was only sixteen years of age.

Daniel Turner was twenty-nine, and the opinion prevailed that he left home because he was unwilling to marry Jane, although they had been for several years engaged, and she had worked hard to get all things ready for housekeeping.  He was not a bad-looking man, and evidently possessed considerable strength.

Clara managed it all nicely, and when the three weeks’ probation ended, they were quietly married at Mr. Davis’, and Mr. Turner went to work on the farm which Jane had for many years let out on shares.  He worked well through the rest of the winter, and the early spring found him busy doing all that needed to be done.

He was interested in our scheme, and felt just pride in the belongings of the Home, which was really settling into a permanency.  We sometimes had letters of interrogation and of encouragement as well, from those who, hearing of us, were interested.

Louis often said the day would come when many institutions of this kind would be established, for the object was a worthy one, and no great need can cry out and not finally be heard, even though the years may multiply ere the answer comes.