Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/152

 were. When he saw me, he stopped and stared. Then he began to curse me and his wife. I cannot remember, I do not think I really heard, the words he said or the names he called us. I looked at her, but she seemed neither surprised nor frightened.

"'You had better go away,' she said; 'you have been very kind to me, but it is not right that you should stay for this. Besides, if you go, he will be quiet, perhaps, and will not wake the child.'

"I knew that he could not wake the child. I went over and kissed her on the cheek; then I kissed the dead lips of the Child of our Hope, and signed him with the cross upon the forehead. The man followed me out of the house and a little way along the road, cursing me. But I did not care.

"Now, Charlie, I have told you what I brought you here to tell. I have seen the Child of our Hope. He was with us, but he is gone again. Can you tell me what it means?"

Charles Fetherston looked at her. Then he rose slowly, and stretched out his hand to take hers.

"Good-night, Aunt Honoria. I do not know what to say to you, or what to think."

"But how it is?" she asked. "I cannot understand. He was with us and is gone, and nothing seems to come of it?"

At the door Charles turned.

"Perhaps," he said, "she, the young woman, the mother, may have another child some day."