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 eagerly at the baby. "That is—all except Dulcie!" she added jokingly.

"Dulcie?" Her aunt drew down fretful brows.

"My horse," explained Mehitable, smiling. "Amos scarcely allowed me to ride her this afternoon; but forsooth, I guess he was right. She be quite lame. I fear I will have to leave her here and walk home."

"Mayhap your uncle will come before ye leave, Hitty. Then he can give ye a lift across the Valley," responded Mistress Condit.

There was a brief pause, during which the baby stirred. "Oh," begged Mehitable, "do let me take him! The sweet person!"

At her aunt's nod of permission, the girl bent over the cradle and carefully lifted the former's grandson, while Mistress Condit took her foot off the cradle rocker with a grimace of pain.

"It be all cramped," she explained. She studied the baby, a fine, sturdy little fellow of six months, with dispassionate eyes, as he crowed and laughed in the girl's arms.

"Aye, he be a good baby!" acknowledged the grandmother in her sad, crushed voice. "Mayhap, some day, I shall understand, though, why his mother had to give up her life for his, Hitty!"

"How proud Jemima would have been o' him!" exclaimed Mehitable, dancing around the kitchen with the baby. "See, Ira, that be your mother!