uniformly sweet and gentle in speech and demeanor.

"Why do you talk of Rod's visiting us when he is one of the
family?" Ivory asked quietly.

"Is he one of the family? I didn't know it," replied his mother
absently.

"Look at me, mother, straight in the eye; that's right: now
listen, dear, to what I say."

Mrs. Boynton's hair that had been in her youth like an aureole of
corn-silk was now a strange yellow-white, and her blue eyes
looked out from her pale face with a helpless appeal.

"You and I were living alone here after father went away," Ivory
began. "I was a little boy, you know. You and father had saved
something, there was the farm, you worked like a slave, I helped,
and we lived, somehow, do you remember?"

"I do, indeed! It was cold and the neighbors were cruel. Jacob
Cochrane had gone away and his disciples were not always true to
him. When the magnetism of his presence was withdrawn, they could
not follow all his revelations, and they forgot how he had
awakened their spiritual life at the first of his preaching. Your
father was always a stanch believer, but when he started on his
mission and went to Parsonsfield to help Elder Cochrane in his
meetings, the neighbors began to criticize him. They doubted him.
You were too young to realize it, but I did, and it almost broke
my heart."