More faintly, slowly, trembled the life over the sweet mouth, and the hands, like waxen shapes, lay pulseless in the mother's clasp; while through the silent room flowed the dirge of the sea. Shaken by the freshening breeze of evening, the shutters of the western window swung ajar, letting in a golden ray upon mother and child, and along that path of light the untarnished soul of Baby Belle was borne by its waiting angel--home! CHAPTER XVIII. Aunt Sarah sat in the wide porch at the back of her house, knitting in hand. It was a still, but not oppressive August afternoon. There was not a ruffle on the bright surface of the river, and the long meadow grass was as smoothly spread out in the yellow sunshine. From the poultry-yard on the left arose a pleasant murmur, and now and then a stray hen tiptoed around the end of the house, singing idly as she rambled. Charley lay on the green mound--his old reading-room--with a book before him, and to him Aunt Sarah's motherly eyes turned most frequently. Those kindly orbs were dimmer than they were two summers ago, and the gentle face was a thought more pensive. A glance into the sitting-room window, from where she sat, would have showed one Uncle Nathan's empty arm-chair in the chimney corner, and above it were suspended his cane and broad-brimmed hat, just as he had put them off when he took his departure for a country where neither shelter nor staff is needed. Aunt Sarah's cap had a widow's border now; and in her faithful heart there was a sadder void than the death of her children had created--loving parent though she was--and yet more plentiful springs of sympathy for others bereaved and suffering. Her rocking-chair was set near the entrance of the hall that bisected the dwelling; and the front and back doors being open, she had a fair view of the public road, whenever she chose to look up the lane. The Shrewsbury stage met the boat at four o'clock, or soon after; and hearing a rumbling along the highway, which she knew presaged its transit through this end of the village, the old lady leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the trunks upon the roof; this being all she could distinguish with certainty above the fence. "Why, it is stopping here!" she ejaculated, getting up to obtain a better look. "Who upon earth can it be?" The coach rolled on, and the passenger for the farm-house came through the gate and down the lane. She was dressed in black, wore a crape veil, and carried a small hand-trunk. With a hospitable instinct, Aunt Sarah advanced to the front porch to meet her, still entirely in the dark as to who it could be. "She has a different look from any of the neighbors; and there's nobody in York that would be likely to come to see me, except Betsy's people, and it can't be either of her girls!"