life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of
expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a
baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her
daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so
dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the
family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while
there was a living opportunity.

I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman
without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the
circumstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to
have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time
to question the feeling until I was sound asleep.

A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate,
for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my
presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed
shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly
under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and,
although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his
heart.

"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie
too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is
selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid."

He told her I was too good, too lovable to quarrel with their bliss, and
held her to his heart while he looked up to the flaxed-haired, baby-faced
mother for a blessing with quite a glow of feeling on his face and real
tears in his eyes.