“I’ll be pop’s schwife!” I exclaimed, as a matter of course, and I can hear their hearty laughter to this day; and my mother drew me over on her and covered me with kisses; and I remember that my father remarked something about my being “a precocious curiosity.” He had a bad habit of speaking about me before my face, never crediting that I would cherish his mysterious remarks until I understood them. Mark me, all children do this. Autumn went by; and winter came. We had an unusually heavy fall of snow for Virginia. Only a redbird and some occasional sparrows could be seen in the leafless poplar. I remember it was the week before Christmas, because I received my sled in advance so that I would go down to the duck pond and not disturb my mother, who was very sick again. That night I was kept down in the kitchen with Uncle Robert and Aunt Maria. Sandy has told me that he was there too. We were all huddled about the brick oven; and my childish intuition perceived a hush over the old servants. Of a sudden, we heard way off down the plantation road the jingle, jingle of bells, coming nearer and nearer. “It am the sleigh comin’ with those town doctors;” said Uncle Robert, and he went out to meet it with his lantern. Even Aunt Maria, who was usually the bulwark of our household, was uneasy and troubled. “I doan’t lak to see them touch my young Mistus!” she said, defiantly, as she held my hand. Jingle! jingle! the sleigh was at the door! I broke away from her and rushed out in the snow to see the doctors who had come from Richmond. I remember how my childish imagination was roused by the sight of three men in soft hats and storm coats, carrying small valises, as they hastened up the porch steps to where my father stood, holding a lamp aloft to light their way. Aunt Maria came and caught me and whisked me off to bed. That was all that I knew until the next morning when I was awakened by a strange white nurse, who had been with us a few days. She said that my father had sent for me “to come and kiss my mamma good-bye.” I went with her without realizing what I was doing. I heard one of the doctors say that he had seen my mother’s father die of the same kind of heart failure. Die? There was that word again. My mother die? No, no, that could not be. I ran out of the room without their knowing that my child’s faith in God, which she had tried to restore in me, was now actually restored. I climbed again to the garret and knelt by the black trunk and held up my little hands in prayer. This time I did not cry. I made up my mind that I must be brave on my father’s account, for when I left the sick-room, I saw that his hands covered his face; and he spoke not a word; and I went and took down his hands, and when he looked at me, I saw his eyes film with tears.