friends. He half dreaded to see her the next morning, lest there should
be some change, same constraint in her manner; not a shade of it. He
could have almost doubted his own recollections of the evening before,
if such a thing had been possible, so absolutely unaltered was Hetty's
treatment of him. She had been absolutely honest in all she said: she
did honestly believe that his fancied love for her was a sentimental
mistake, a caprice born of idleness and lack of occupation, and she did
honestly intend to forget the whole thing, and to make him forget it.
And so they went back to the farm, where the summer awaited them with
overflowing harvests of every thing, and Hetty's hands were so full that
very soon she had almost ceased to recollect the life at "The Runs."
Sally and the baby were strong and well. The whole family seemed newly
glad and full of life. All odd hours they could snatch from work, Old
Caesar and Nan roamed about in the sun, following the baby, as his nurse
carried him in her arms. He had been christened Abraham Gunn Little;
poor James Little having persistently refused to let his own name be
given to the child, and Hetty having been cordially willing to give her
father's. To speak to a baby as Abraham was manifestly impossible, and
the little fellow was called simply "Baby" month after month, until,
one day, one of Norah's toddlers, who could not speak plain, hit upon a
nickname so fortunate that it was at once adopted by everybody. "Raby,"
little Mike called him, by some original process of compounding
"Abraham" and "Baby;" and "Raby" he was from that day out. He was a
beautiful child: his mother's blue eyes, his father's dark hair, and a
skin like a ripe peach, but not over fair,--made a combination of color
which was rarely lovely. He was a joyous child, as joyous as if no
shadow had ever rested on his mother's heart. Sally watched him day by
day with delight; but the delight was never wholly free from pain: the
wound she had received, the wound she had inflicted on herself, could
never wholly heal. A deep, moral hurt must for ever leave its trace, as