This
touched many a heart. The dead woman had been more or less unfamiliar
of late years to all of them; and there were few who had really
grieved for her until her little child had reminded them of its own
loneliness and loss.
That night, after the house was still, John Thacher wrote to acquaint
Miss Prince, of Dunport, with his sister's death and to say that it
was her wish that the child should remain with them during its
minority. They should formally appoint the guardian whom she had
selected; they would do their best by the little girl. And when Mrs.
Thacher asked if he had blamed Miss Prince, he replied that he had
left that to her own conscience.
In the answer which was quickly returned, there was a plea for the
custody of the child, her mother's and her own namesake, but this was
indignantly refused. There was no love lost between the town and the
country household, and for many years all intercourse was at an end.
Before twelve months were past, John Thacher himself was carried down
to the pasture burying-ground, and his old mother and the little child
were left to comfort and take care of each other as best they could in
the lonely farm-house.
V
A SUNDAY VISIT
In the gray house on the hill, one spring went by and another, and it
seemed to the busy doctor only a few months from the night he first
saw his ward before she was old enough to come soberly to church with
her grandmother. He had always seen her from time to time, for he had
often been called to the farm or to the Dyers and had watched her at
play.
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