"Yes, dearie, I know," said Mrs. Powell, her gaze following Amanda's as it was bent upon the sleeping infant. "I know it's a trial. And I'm ashamed I said anything. Nobody need t' wonder at yo' bein' a mite out o' gear. But trust the good Laud, Mandy, and He'll bring everything out right, yit." "Will He straighten baby's back, do you think, mother? Or do you mean that He will make things right by letting it die?" Mrs. Powell's color arose, and she did not venture to reply. Could any one but a mother wish the child to live? "He will not die," said Amanda, laying her hand softly on the baby's thick golden hair. There was intense feeling in the low tone, but with her next words her voice took on a hard quality that Mrs. Powell had learned to associate with acute distress. "He will live," she cried, but not loudly; "live to reproach his father for a sin so dark that no one can name it. Aye, we must hush it up. This is a 'visitation of Providence,' in the opinion of our good friends. Well, I don't call it that. The truth is that it's a visitation of _liquor_, of----" "Hush, hush, Mandy!" "Excuse my lack of delicacy," said Amanda, with biting scorn. Not scorn of her mother, but of the idea of the county as reflected in her mother. She leaned back and drew a fleecy white shawl carefully over the baby's shoulders, then resumed sadly: "I could stand it better, if I was free from blame in my own eyes. I tell you, mother, the only real hell is in knowing you're wrong, and feeling, to the bottom of your heart that you've brought suffering upon others by being wrong." "My dear child," quavered good Mrs. Powell, "you's morbid. Yo' notion ain't the right notion at all. How could you ahelped the pore child's bein' so?" "By standing to my colors. By obeying my own conscience, no matter what the world said." "Mandy, yo' own sense must tell you't you couldn't ahelped it, noway. Even if you'd kept on thinkin' 's you done. It wuz took out'n yo' hands. You done yo' duty in stayin' by Vivian when he wuz laid low, an' nobody kin do mo'n their duty." "It was my duty to nurse him. And after that--after he was _well_, I should have--gone." "Now, I reely thought you got fond o' Vivian, an' I wuz thankin' the Laud for it." "Oh, women are mostly fools," answered Amanda, sweepingly. "But don't thank the Lord for it, mother. The fruits of folly are more bitter than the fruits of wilful sins, I think." "Mandy," said Mrs. Powell, rising in all the might of her sensible, hearty, well-balanced nature; "it won't do to be furever dwellin' 'pon what we've failed to do, an' what we ought to adone. This world ain't heaven, and we's right to rejoice with tremblin'; but there's a sayin' I want to recommend to yo' pore, worn heart: 'Again I say unto ye, rejoice.' That's it, honey. Stop worryin' an' frettin' an' leave things you can't alter if you wuz to kill yo'self tryin'.