and she set the table for supper, in a filial glow of satisfaction,
never dreaming that her mother, in the kitchen, was keeping her
head turned from the stove lest she should cry into the fried
ham and stewed potatoes. But, at a sudden thought, Jane Louder
laid her big spoon down to wipe her eyes.

"Here you are, Jane Louder"--thus she addressed herself--"mourning and
grieving to leave your friends and be laid aside for a useless old woman,
and jist be taken care of, and you clean forgetting the chance the Lord
gives you to help more'n you ever helped in your life! For shame!"

A smile of exaltation, of lofty resolution, erased the worry lines
on her face. "Why, it might be to save twenty lives," said she;
but in the very speaking of the words a sharp pain wrenched
her heart again, and she caught up the baby from the floor,
where he sat in a wall of chairs, and sobbed over him:
"Oh, how can I go away when I got to go for good so soon?
I want every minnit!"

She never thought of disputing Tilly's wishes. "It's only fair,"
said Jane. "She's lived here all these years to please me,
and now I ought to be willing to go to please her."

Neither did she for a moment hope to change Tilly's determination.
"She was the settest baby ever was," thought poor Jane,
tossing on her pillow, in the night watches, "and it's grown
with every inch of her!"

But in the morning she surprised her daughter. "Tilly," said she
at the breakfast-table, "Tilly, I got something I must do,