"If it were taken," she thought, "they should all feel something as the shepherds did when 'the angels were gone away from them into heaven.'" Even she had begun to realize that a babe is indeed God's angel in a household. Often, like those Christmas angels, it stays just long enough to be the messenger of peace and good-will, and then returns to Him who sent it. Like them, it leaves us without an earth-stain on its vesture; without a regret for the world from which it is so soon withdrawn. But Helen's little one was to remain. The household rejoiced, and Rhoda learnt to recognise herself in a new character. She became the baby's head-nurse and most devoted slave. "Was there ever such a child?" she asked, as it gained strength and beauty. "It will be as pretty as Helen by-and-by." "It has a look of Robert," said the farmer, thoughtfully. Rhoda's smiles fled. She wanted to forget the relationship between that man and her darling. Nor was she without a fear that it might have inherited some touch of his evil nature. Her heart never softened towards him because he was the father of the child. And yet how much richer her life had grown since she had taken the baby into it! The snow lay long upon the ground. It was so lengthened a winter, that spring seemed to come suddenly. There was a burst of primroses on the borders of the fields. They lit up shady places with their pale yellow stars, and spread themselves out in sheets. Every puff of wind was sweet with the breath of violets; birds sang their old carols--now two or three clear notes--now a shake--then a long whistle. All God's works praised Him in the freshness of their new life. Old dry stumps, that Rhoda had thought dead and useless, began to put forth green shoots. The earth teemed with surprises; all around there was a continual assertion of vitality. And so hard is it to distinguish the barrenness of winter from the barrenness of death, that every spring has its seeming miracles. The tree that our impatient hands had well-nigh hewn down may be our sweetest shelter in the heat of summer noontide. Not until the high winds had sent the blossoms drifting over the orchards like a second snowfall, did there come news of Helen's husband. The tidings came through Mr. Elton. Clarris had written to him, enclosing a letter for his wife. He had also sent notes to the amount of forty pounds to his former employer. From time to time he promised money should be forwarded until the whole sum that he had taken was restored. "I believe," wrote Mr. Elton to the farmer, "that he will keep his word. He does not, he declares, hope to wipe out his sin by this restitution. 'I am not one whit better than any other criminal,' he writes, 'but I have been more leniently dealt with than most of my brethren. God's mercy, acting through you, has done much for me.'"