"_Rachael!_" The sound grew familiar, the voice came to her from the depths of the past, as a ghost glides out from the darkness that surrounds it. The knowledge that she had once known a sister came back. "Rachael, my sister Rachael!" Her soul gave up its past at the cry. She stretched forth her arms as she had done a thousand times in her helpless infancy, and fell into the embrace that gathered her up to the very heart of that dying woman. "Rachael!" "Sister!" Language was mute then, and silence became eloquent; the blood in those two hearts throbbed with kindred fire, those arms clung together like vines rooted in the same soil. At last the woman began to stagger. "Let me sit down, Rachael." She fell into the easy-chair, gasping for breath. "Lay thy head here close--close, sister--sister!" "You are ill--dying!" "Not yet--there--there--it is well; thee will try and remember how dear the little Rachael was to her sister, thee will know how true this heart is by its beating--its last beat, for I am about to die." "Yes, I remember, as in a dream; but still I know who you are, spite of this dress, spite of time." "And now, sister, dear sister, I have come to ask, for my little one, the care which thee received at my hands; for as our mother took thee from her bosom when she came to her death in the wilderness, I charge thee, sister Rachael, with my only daughter, Abigail Williams, for thus thee must call my child. She has another name, but that would bring fierce enemies upon her." "God so deal with me as I deal with this little one!" was the reply, and reaching forth her arm, Mrs. Parris drew the child from the feet of her mother, kissing her softly amid her tears. "Rachael!" "Sister!" "When thee was a little child like her, I suffered them to drive me away like a sinner and a slave; I suffered them to tear thee from my bosom, and went into the wilderness alone, never attempting to come back lest thee too might suffer, and perchance perish of want. It was like tearing my life away when thee was given up." "Alas, alas! that I should have known so little of this!" "It was a merciful forgetfulness; thy pure life has been all the happier for it, but I was not unmindful; many a week's journey have I taken through the woods to hear of thy welfare." "But yourself?" "I have been even as God wills it. Look up, Rachael: do not weep or droop thine eyes to the earth: thee has no cause. Even as thee, I have been the wife of one husband." "I did not think otherwise; it is for myself that I am troubled. Surely this heart should have told me that you lived." "Once more, my sister, it was a merciful forgetfulness; not till I knew by sure signs that my last moment was at hand, would I claim even this hour of thy life. Now I have come a long way alone and on foot, to give up my child, that she may dwell with the people of her mother." "But her father?"