Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/142

132 And so it came to pass that after Molly was buried, there was hardly a trace left of her in the old Bassett house except her little work-basket, which stood on the stand by her bed, and held a little baby's sack of flannel, on which she had been working that last day. This basket John would not allow to be moved. It hurt him like a new sight of Molly's dead face whenever he looked at it, and yet he could not bear to have it taken away. He would often turn over the spools, the worn and discolored bit of bees-wax, the thimble, the scissors; he would take up the little sack, and look at it almost with thoughts of hatred. If the baby had lived, he would have come to love her in spite of her having cost her mother's life; but now he felt that Molly had gone childless out of the world, he was left childless in it; this miserable, frustrated, useless life, that was never a life at all, had separated him from Molly,—it was bitter. One day he felt in one of the silk pockets of the basket a rustling of paper; clumsily, and with difficulty, he thrust his big fingers deep down into the little receptacle, and drew out a crumpled bit of newspaper. It had been folded and refolded so many times that the creases were worn almost through, He opened it and read the following lines:—