devoted mother and wife, "refined by fire." For me, the last,--whenever
now I say, as I used to say, "Three of us," I mean a new three,--Paul,
baby, and me; for Jo was not a prophet. Four years ago, while my heart-
ache for her was fresh and torturing, a new pastor came to the little
village church of Valley Mills. Mr. Lyman was very good; I have seen other
men with as fine natural traits, but I have never seen a man or woman so
entirely good. He came to me to console me; for he, too, had just lost a
sister, and in listening to his story I for a moment forgot my own, as he
meant I should. But I did not love him,--no, not till I discovered, months
afterward, that he suffered incessantly from ill-health, and was all alone
in the world. I was too much a woman to resist such a plea. I pitied him;
I tried to take care of him; and when he asked me if I liked the office of
sick-nurse, I told him I liked it well enough to wish it were for life;
and now, when he wants to light my eyes out of that dreamy expression that
tells him I am re-living the past, and thinking of the dead, he tells me,
for the sake of the flash that follows, that I offered myself to him!
Perhaps I did. But he is well now; the air of the Tunxis hills, and the
rest of a quiet life, partly, I hope, good care also, have restored to him
his lost health. And I am what Jo said I should have been,--a blessed
mother, as well as a happy wife. The baby that lies across my lap has
traits that endear her to me doubly,--traits of each of us three cousins:
Josephine's hair on her little nestling head, Letty's apple-blossom
complexion, and my eyes, except that they are serene when they are not
smiling. I ask only of the love that has given me all this unexpected joy,
that my little Jo may have one better trait,--her father's heart; a
stronger, tenderer, and purer heart than belonged to any one among "Three
of us!"