“When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, same as mine), her eyes shone like two evening stars. She held up her weak arms, and gathered the little bundle o’ warm flannel into ’em; and when she got it close she shut her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb to the altar and off’ring it up as a sacrifice. Then Reuben come in. I seen him give one look at the two dark heads laying close together on the white piller, and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed. ’Twa’n’t no place for me; I went off, and left ’em together. We didn’t mistrust it then, but they only had three days more of happiness, and I’m glad I give ’em every minute.” The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over the hills of Pleasant River. Priscilla’s lip trembled; Diadema’s tears fell thick and fast on the white rosebud, and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed the pattern. “I ain’t said as much as this about it for five years,” she went on, with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, “but now I’ve got going, I can’t stop. I’ll have to get the weight out o’ my heart somehow. “Three days after I put Lovey’s baby into her arms the Lord called her home. ‘When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,’ says she, holding the baby as if she could never let it go, ‘I didn’t think I’d got to give up my own in place of it; but it’s the first fiery flood we’ve had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I’ll tread it as brave as I know how.’ “She didn’t speak a word after that; she just faded away like a snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared one another in the face as if we was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o’ mourning like sleep-walkers for days and days, not knowing whether we et or slept, or what we done. “As for the baby, the poor little mite didn’t live many hours after its mother, and we buried ’em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would have liked. She gave her life for the baby’s, and it was a useless sacrifice, after all. No, it wa’n’t neither; it _couldn’t_ have been! You needn’t tell me God’ll let such sacrifices as that come out useless! But anyhow, we had one coffin for ’em both, and I opened Lovey’s arms and laid the baby in ’em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we thought she seemed more’n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There never was another like her, and there never will be. ‘Nonesuch,’ Reuben used to call her.” There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the old clock and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made an impetuous movement, flung herself down by the basket of rags, and buried her head in Diadema’s gingham apron. “Dear Mrs. Bascom, don’t cry. I’m sorry, as the children say.”