“Hen-ery—­Hen-ery,” each pronouncement of his name surging higher in her throat.

“Why, Em?”

“Hen-ery, I haven’t words sweet enough to tell you.”

“Em, tell what?” And stopped.  He could see suddenly that her eyes were full of new pins of light and his lightening intuition performed a miracle of understanding.

“Emmy!” he cried, jerking her so that her breath jumped, and at the sudden drench of tears down her face sat her down, supporting her roundish back with his wet hands, although he himself felt weak.

“I—­can’t say—­what I feel, Henry—­only—­God is good and—­I’m not afraid.”

He held her to his shoulder and let her tears rain down into his watch pocket, so shaken that he found himself mouthing silent words.

“God is good, Henry, isn’t He?”

“Yes, Emmy, yes.  Oh, my Emmy!”

“It must have been our prayers, Henry.”

“Well,” sheepishly, “not exactly mine, Emmy; you’re the saint of this family.  But I—­I’ve wished.”

“Henry.  I’m so happy—­Mrs. Peopping had Jeanette at forty-three.  Three years older than me.  I’m not afraid.”

It was then he looked down at her graying head there, prone against his chest, and a dart of fear smote him.

“Emmy,” he cried, dragging her tear-happy face up to his, “if you’re afraid—­not for anything in the world!  You’re first, Em.”

She looked at him with her eyes two lamps.

“Afraid?  That’s the beautiful part, Henry.  I’m not.  Only happy.  Why afraid, Henry—­if others dare it at—­forty-three—­You mean because it was her second?”

He faced her with a scorch of embarrassment in his face.

“You—­We—­Well, we’re not spring chickens any more, Em.  If you are sure it’s not too—­”

She hugged him, laughing her tears.

“I’m all right, Henry—­we’ve been too happy not to—­to—­perpetuate—­it.”

This time he did not answer.  His cheek was against the crochet of her yoke and she could hear his sobs with her heart.

* * * * *

Miraculously, like an amoeba reaching out to inclose unto itself, the circle opened with a gasp of astonishment that filled Mrs. Peopping’s O to its final stretch and took unto its innermost Emma Jett.

Nor did she wear her initiation lightly.  There was a new tint out in her long cheeks, and now her chair, a rocker, was but one removed from Mrs. Peopping’s.

Oh, the long, sweet afternoons over garments that made needlework sublime.  No longer the padded rose on the centerpiece or the futile doily, but absurd little dresses with sleeves that she measured to the length of her hand, and yokes cut out to the pattern of a playing card, and all fretted over with feather-stitching that was frailer than maidenhair fern and must have cost many an eye-ache, which, because of its source, was easy to bear.