"Well, I never could tell you just how we got through the next year. Angry and rebellious! That tells all that could be told of Ezra Stone for that year. He stuck closer than ever, if that could be, to his farm work; and, though he could not do so much with his own hands, his eye was never off the work that was going on, and the crops were as good as ever. He boasted a little about his crops, and the prices he got; but he did not take the comfort of his success as he had done in former years. He did not say it to me, but I am sure he said to himself many a time--`What does it all amount to?' It did not seem to make much difference--the adding of a thousand, or maybe two, to the dollars he had already, since there were none to come after him. "Well, his health failed again that winter, and he was in the house a good deal of his time. I made it my whole business to see to him, and to make the time pass as easily as might be. I read the papers to him-- he had always liked that--and after a while I read other things; and once a day, and sometimes twice, I read the Bible to him. I had promised Jim I would do that whenever I could, and I guess he had promised Jim to let me; and sometimes he took pleasure in it; and I have thought since, if I had been different--if I could have showed him the longing I had to do him good, if I could have spoken to him oftener of the Saviour and His love, that which I had longed for and prayed for all these years since Jim died might have come sooner. It came at last. "`Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven!' The Lord Himself said that. And it was just that which happened to my husband. The man who for so many years had seemed to me to have the hardest heart and the narrowest mind that mortal could have, was just made over anew. He became a little child. There is no other way of putting it. He was gentle and teachable--yes, and lovable; and that last year with him seemed to more than make up to us both for all the suffering of our married life. Yes, I did come to love my husband; and, what seemed stranger to me, he came to love me those last years, and if I had been different he might have loved me from the first. My mistake was--but there, I do not need to tell you that, seeing I have told you so much--more than I have ever told even Eunice, I declare. And you needn't be too sorry for me." There had been tears in Fidelia's eyes many times while the story went on, and there were tears still as she stooped to kiss her. "I am more glad for you than sorry. It all ended well, Aunt Ruby." "Yes; as well as well could be for them, and well for me too. I don't feel as if I ever could be faithless or afraid again--but there's no telling. And now, dear, had you not better sing something again? It seems as though they must have missed us before now; and some of them will likely be looking for us."