for their birth as the Mother Onlies, and somehow, when she speaks it,
the name carries a world of tenderness into the heart of the hearer.

"Whose now?" I asked her gently, because in a way Mother Spurlock and I
bore one another's burdens of spirit.

"Hattie Garrett's, and it's a week old now. It is one of the saddest
things that ever happened in the village, and we none of us understand.
You remember, she taught the district school down in the Settlement."

"As none of us understood about Martha Ensley. Is that all a mystery
still?" I asked, and I stroked the bundle of tiny garments.

"Yes, and now she's gone nobody knows where, day before yesterday.
Jacob, her father, was rough and violent with her, but only from grief,
and she forgave all that. I'm troubled sorely, for she is gentle, and
not one to fight the world alone. She must have gone to the city, the
good Lord help her!"

"He will--He is," I answered quickly, then stopped because I knew I must
not tell what I had overheard--should I say in the confessional?

"Praise God! to hear you speak such words. Sometimes a body's faith gets
out of her heart past her mind and proclaims itself before the higher
criticism gets a chance to throttle it," the invincible old warrior
exclaimed with a delighted twinkle in her young blue eyes at having
caught me with religious goods on me. "He will, He will take _care_ of
us all, not that He doesn't expect us to put in about sixteen hours of
the day helping Him to do it for ourselves and others. That reminds me
that I seem to be growing to this chair. Luella May Spain has got a nice