Long tender shadows lay across the fields, the sky had that wonderful clear-ness and kindness which is like a hu-man eye, and the soft wind puffing in at the window was sweet with field fragrance. A glass of milk and a plate with two slices of bread lay on the win-dow sill by me, as if some one had placed them there from the outside. I could hear birds settling down for the night, and cheeping drowsily to each other. My cat came on the scene and, seeing me, looked at me with serious, expanding eyes, twitched her whiskers cynically, and passed on. Presently I heard the voices of my family. They were re-entering the sitting-room. Sup-per was over -- supper, with its cold meats and shining jellies, its "floating island" and its fig cake. I could hear a voice that was new to me. It was deeper than my mother's, and its ac-cent was different. It was the sort of a voice that made you feel that its owner had talked with many different kinds of people, and had contrived to hold her own with all of them. I knew it belonged to Aunt Cordelia. And now that I was not to see her, I felt my curi-osity arising in me. I wanted to look at her, and still more I wished to ask her about goodness. She was rich and good! Was one the result of the other?
And which came first? I dimly per-ceived that if there had been more money in our house there would have been more help, and I would not have been led into temptation -- baby would not have been left too long upon my hands. However, after a few moments of self-pity, I rejected this thought. I knew I really was to blame, and it oc-curred to me that I would add to my faults if I tried to put the blame on any-body else.
Now that the first shock was over and that my sleep had refreshed me, I be-gan to see what terrible sorrow had been mine if the fall had really injured Julie; and a sudden thought shook me.
She might, after all, have been hurt in some way that would show itself later on. I yearned to look upon her, to see if all her sweetness and softness was in-tact. It seemed to me that if I could not see her the rising grief in me would break, and I would sob aloud. I didn't want to do that. I had no notion to call any attention to myself whatever, but see the baby I must. So, softly, and like a thief, I opened the door com-municating with the little dressing-room in which Julie's cradle stood. The curtain had been drawn and it was al-most dark, but I found my way to Julie's bassinet. I could not quite see her, but the delicate odour of her breath came up to me, and I found her little hand and slipped my finger in it.
It was gripped in a baby pressure, and I stood there enraptured, feeling as if a flower had caressed me. I was thrilled through and through with hap-piness, and with love for this little crea-ture, whom my selfishness might have destroyed. There was nothing in what had happened during this moment or two when I stood by her side to assure me that all was well with her; but I did so believe, and I said over and over:
"Thank you, God! Thank you, God!"
And now my tears began to flow.
They came in a storm -- a storm I could not control, and I fled back to mother's room, and stood there before the west window weeping as I never had wept before.
The quiet loveliness of the closing day had passed into the splendour of the afterglow. Mighty wings as of bright angels, pink and shining white, reached up over the sky. The vault was purple above me, and paled to lilac, then to green of unimaginable tenderness.
Now I quenched my tears to look, and then I wept again, weeping no more for sorrow and loneliness and shame than for gratitude and delight in beauty. So fair a world! What had sin to do with it? I could not make it out.
The shining wings grew paler, faded, then darkened; the melancholy sound of cow-bells stole up from the common.
The birds were still; a low wind rustled the trees. I sat thinking my young "night thoughts" of how marvellous it was for the sun to set, to rise, to keep its place in heaven -- of how wrapped about with mysteries we were. What if the world should start to falling through space? Where would it land?
Was there even a bottom to the uni-verse? "World without end" might mean that there was neither an end to space nor yet to time. I shivered at thought of such vastness.
Suddenly light streamed about me, warm arms enfolded me.
"Mother!" I murmured, and slipped from the unknown to the dear familiar-ity of her shoulder.
It was, I soon perceived, a silk-clad shoulder. Mother had on her best dress; nay, she wore her coral pin and ear-rings. Her lace collar was scented with Jockey Club, and her neck, into which I was burrowing, had the inde-scribable something that was not quite odour, not all softness, but was com-pounded of these and meant mother.
She said little to me as she drew me away and bathed my face, brushed and plaited my hair, and put on my clean frock. But we felt happy together. I knew she was as glad to forgive as I was to be forgiven.
In a little while she led me, blinking, into the light. A tall stranger, a lady in prune-coloured silk, sat in the high-backed chair.
"This is my eldest girl, Aunt Cor-delia," said my mother. I went for-ward timidly, wondering if I were really going to be greeted by this per-son who must have heard such terrible reports of me. I found myself caught by the hands and drawn into the em-brace of this new, grand acquaintance.
"Well, I've been wanting to see you," said the rich, kind voice. "They say you look as I did at your age. They say you are like me!"
Like her -- who was good! But no one referred to this difference or said anything about my sins. When we were sorry, was evil, then, forgotten and sin forgiven? A weight as of iron dropped from my spirit. I sank with a sigh on the hassock at my aunt's feet. I was once more a member of society.
