Melody's doing too, that was. She didn't know it; but she doesn't know
the tenth of what she does. Just the sight of her coming along the
road--hark! surely I heard the click of the doctor's mare. Does seem
hard to wait, doesn't it? But Rejoice,--what do you suppose it is for
Rejoice? only she's used to it, as you may say.

Yes, Rejoice is used to waiting, surely; what else is her life? In the
little white cottage now, Mandy Loomis, in a fever of excitement, is
running from door to window, flapping out flies with her apron,
opening the oven door, fidgeting here and there like a distracted
creature; but in the quiet room, where Rejoice lies with folded hands,
all is peace, brooding peace and calm and blessedness. The sick woman
does not even turn her head on the pillow; you would think she slept,
if she did not now and again raise the soft brown eyes,--the most
patient eyes in the world,--and turn them toward the window. Yes,
Rejoice is used to waiting; yet it is she who first catches the
far-off sound of wheels, the faint click of the brown mare's hoofs.
With her bodily ears she hears it, though so still is she one might
think the poor withered body deserted, and the joyous soul away on the
road, hovering round the returning travellers as they make their
triumphal entry.

For all can see them now. First the brown mare's head, with sharp ears
pricked, coming round the bend; then a gleam of white, a vision of
waving hair, a light form bending forward. Melody! Melody has come
back to us! They shout and laugh and cry, these quiet people. Alfred
and Alice his wife have run forward, and are caressing the brown mare
with tears of joy, holding the baby up for Melody to feel and kiss,
because it has grown so wonderfully in this week of her absence. Mrs.
Penny is weeping down behind the hedge; Mandy Loomis is hurling