The ladies of the town played a game with cards, a simple game that did not prevent conversation. On the day of the card party there was a faint flutter in the town, the ladies riding by in phaëtons and traps, wearing their best. If Charlotte Bell entertained the group she would, at some time during the party, sit at the piano with Theodosia standing near, and they would play some simple part of an overture or a popular air. The Bell house was a white frame structure to which several additions had been built, a long portico or gallery running almost the entire length of the front giving a pleasant open space above stairs as well as below where one might take the air. On summer evenings Charlotte would sit for a while on the upper gallery with the two girls and sing, sitting apart from the house where Horace Bell came and went lightly, never troubling to hide his destination whether it was a gambling party with men or an evening with some woman. Seen once at dusk as she sat on the upper gallery, her head against the bank of vines, her two little girls grouped close about her to sing, she had looked like the pitying madonna diverted by hate. She had wanted a rightly-placed hearth. Now she played much with Theodosia, their simple airs arising above the quiet of the street. Horace, departing, would wave them a gay farewell, a greeting that was all of himself, lightly given, or once in a while he would stop briefly beside the piano and join his great voice to the song, booming the words across the fiddle notes, taking a pride and a delight in his great running voice that emasculated the piano. When he had made his point he would leave in a thunder of laughter, waving a hasty good-bye. When Annie was seven years old she sickened of a fatal child malady and died. The funeral was held in the church, and Luce wept when she saw the Bells weeping as they sat near together at the front of the church in the space respectfully left for the mourners, seeing them huddled together and set apart by death. The minister preached of the kingdom of heaven, the world to come, and of becoming as a little child. A lady, Mrs. Bent, sang a song while the organ hummed softly. She was full-breasted and maternal, and as she sang she looked as if she only a moment before had held a child in her arms, and the words of the song seemed truer as she sang them, truer than the sayings of the minister to which they lent truth. Her own children sat with their father in a pew at the side, and the words of the song came very gently across the church as she looked as if some child might easily creep into her arms. I think when I read that sweet story of old, Of Jesus while here among men, How He took little children as lambs to His fold....