The brazen clang of the deep-throated bell rang out on the quiet air, and a moment later, the piercing treble of a child’s cry made her spring to her feet.  She peeped into the chapel all was still.

On tiptoe she passed swiftly down the aisle to the chancel, and saw the figure crouched at the altar, with one arm twined through the railing.  For many days and nights the tortured woman had not known an instant of repose; nervous dread had scourged her to the verge of frenzy, but when the flow of long-pent tears partly extinguished the fire in her brain, overtaxed Nature claimed restitution, and the prisoner yielded to overwhelming prostration.  Death might be hovering near, but her twin sister sleep intervened, and compassionately laid her poppies on the snowy eyelids.

Stooping close, Mrs. Singleton saw that tears yet hung on the black lashes which swept the flushed cheeks, but the parted lips were at rest, and the deep regularly drawn breath told her that at last the weary soul reposed in the peaceful domain of dreams.  Deftly, and softly as thistledown falls, she spread her own shawl over the drooping shoulders, then noiselessly hurried back to the door.  Locking it, she took the key, ran across the grass, into the arcade, and up to the great iron barrier, which the guard opened as she approached.  With flying feet she neared her own apartments, whence issued the indignant wail of her implacable baby girl.  As she opened the door, her husband held the disconsolate child toward her.

“You are in time for your share of the fun; I have had enough and to spare.  How you stand this diabolical din day in, day out, passes my comprehension.  You had not been gone fifteen minutes when Missy tuned up.  I patted and, ‘She-e-d’ her, but she got her head above cover, squinted around the room, and not finding you, set up a squall that would have scared a wildcat.  The more I patted, the worse she screamed, and her feet and hands flew around like a wind-mill.  I took her up, and trotted her on my knee, but bless you! she squirmed like an eel, and her little bald head bobbed up and down faster than a di-dapper.  Then I walked her, but I would as soon try to swing to a greased snake.  She wriggled and bucked, and tied herself up into a bow knot, and yelled—.  Oh! a Comanche papoose is a dummy to her.  As if I had not hands full, arms full, and ears full, Dick must needs wake up and pitch head foremost out of the cradle, and turn a double summerset before he landed upside down on the floor, whereupon he lifted up his voice, and the concert grew lively.  I took him under one arm, so, and laid Missy over my shoulder, and it struck me I would join the chorus in self defence, so I opened with all my might on ‘Hold the Fort’; but great Tecumseh!  I only insulted them both, and finding my fifth fiddle was nowhere in the fray, I feared Jarvis would hear the howling and ring the alarm bell, so I just sat down.  I spread out Dick in a soft place, where he could not bump his brains out, and laying my lady across my lap, I held her down by main force, while she screamed till she was black in the face.  If you had not come just when you did, I should have turned gray and cross-eyed.  Hello, Missy!  If she is not cooing and laughing!  Little vixen!  Oh! but—­’lambs’!—­I believe they are!  Hereafter tend your own flock; and in preference I will herd young panthers.”