hands. Lazy Daisy was openly sobbing. Miss Ellie was twisting her
fingers nervously in and out--she unwound them to clutch at Angy's arm
as if to hold her. At last Miss Abigail spoke with so unaccustomed a
sharpness that her voice seemed not her own:

"Sech a foolish question as that nobody in their sound senses would
ask."

Abe sat down in his old place at the fireside and smiled a thousand
smiles in one. He smiled and rubbed his hands before the blaze. The
blaze itself seemed scarcely more bright and warm than the light from
within which transfigured his aged face.

"Gals," he chuckled in his old familiar way, "I dunno how Sam'l Darby'll
take it; but if Mother's willin', I guess I won't buy back no more of
the old place, 'cept'n' jest my rockin'-chair with the red roses onto
it; an' all the rest o' this here plagued money I'll hand over ter the
directors, an' stay right here an' take my comfort."

Angy bent down and whispered in his ear: "I'd ruther dew it, tew,
Father. Anythin' else would seem like goin' a-visitin'. But yew don't
want ter go an' blame me," she added anxiously, "ef yew git all riled up
an' sick abed ag'in."

"Pshaw, Mother," he protested; "yew fergit I was _adopted_ then; naow I
be _adoptin_'. Thar's a big difference."

She lifted her face, relieved, and smiled into the relieved and radiant
faces of Abe's "children," and her own.