“I never thought of this; how wonderful you are, Louis,” I said.

“And you, my Emily, my companion, may our work be the nucleus around which shall gather the work of ages yet to be, for it takes an age, you know, to do the work of a year—­almost of a day.”

Our lives ran on like a strong full tide, and all our ships were borne smoothly along for four full years.  An addition had been made to Jane’s house, and her husband proved loyal and true, so good and kind and earnest in his work that Aunt Hildy said: 

“I have forgotten to remember his dark days, and I really don’t believe he’d ever have cut up so ef Silas had let him alone.”

Good Mrs. Davis had sought rest and found it, and a widowed niece came as house-keeper.  John Jones was growing able to do the work he promised the girls and boys down South, and lectured in the towns around us, telling his own story with remarkable eloquence for one who had no early advantages.  He was naturally an orator, and only needed a habit of speaking to make apparent his exceptional mental capacity.  Aunt Hildy was not as strong when 1860 dawned upon us, and she said on New Year’s evening, which with us was always devoted to a sort of recalling of the past: 

“Don’t believe I’ll be here when sixty-one comes marchin’ in.”

Clara looked at her with a strange light in her eyes, and said: 

“Dear Aunt Hildy, wait for me, please; I’d like to go just when you do.”

It was the nineteenth day of April this year, when an answer to a prayer was heard, and a little wailing sound caused my heart to leap in gratitude and love.  A little dark-eyed daughter came to us, and Louis and I were father and mother.  She had full dark eyes like his, Clara’s mouth, and a little round head that I knew would be covered with sunny curls, because this would make her the picture I had so longed to see.

“Darling baby-girl, why did you linger so long?  We have waited till our hope had well-nigh vanished,” and the dark eyes turned on me for an answer, which my heart read, “It is well.”

Louis named her “Emily Minot Desmonde.”  It was his wish, and while, as I thought, it ill suited the little fairy, I only said: 

“May she never be called ‘Emily did it.’”

“May that be ever her name,” said Louis, “for have you not yourself done that of which she will be always proud, and when we are gone will they who are left not say of you, ‘Emily did it’?

“Ah! my darling, you have lost and won your title, and it comes back shaped and gilded anew, for scores of childish lips have echoed it, and ‘Emily did it’ is written in the indelible ink of the great charity which has given them shelter.”

“Louis, too,” I said, and he answered: 

“Had I not found my Emily, I could never have undertaken it.  You cannot know how I gathered lessons from your happy home.  In my earliest years I was dissatisfied with the life which money could buy.  I did not know the comforts of work and pleasure mingled, and it was here, under these grand old hills, while communing with nature, I sought and found the presence of its Infinite Creator; and your smile, your presence, was a promise to me which has been verified to the letter.”