behind a ledge of rocks, where, unseen by any eye save that of God, he wept more bitterly than he had ever done before.
"Why, oh, why," he cried, "must this innocent baby's questions torture me so? and why can I never take him in my arms or lay my hands upon him lest they should leave a stain?"
Then holding up before him his hard, toil-worn hands, he tried to recall what it was he had heard or read of another than himself who tried to rid his hands of the foul spot and could not.
"Only the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," he whispered to himself, while his lips moved spasmodically with the prayer habitual to them; four words only, "Forgive me, Lord, forgive."
It had always been a strong desire with Grey to be led around the premises by his grandfather, who had steadily resisted all advances of that kind, until with a child's quick intuition, Grey seemed to understand that his grandfather's hands were something he must not touch.
That afternoon, however, as Mr. Jerrold was walking on the green sward by the kitchen door, with his head bent down and his hands clasped behind him, Grey stole noiselessly up to him, and grasping the right hand in both his own, held it fast, while he jumped up and down as he called out to Hannah, who was standing near:
"I'se dot it, I'se dot it—dada's han', an' I sal keep it, too, and tiss it hard, like dat," and the baby's lips were pressed upon the rough hand, which lay helpless and subdued in the two small palms holding it so tight.
It was like the casting out of an evil spirit, and Granpa Jerrold felt half his burden rolling away beneath that caress. There was a healing power in the touch of Grey's lips, and the stain, if stain there were upon the wrinkled hand, was kissed away, and the pain and remorse were not so great after that.
Grey had conquered and was free to do what he pleased with the old man, who became his very slave, going wherever Grey liked, whether up the steep hill-side in the rear of the house or down upon the pond near by, where the white lilies grew and where there was a little boat in which the old man and the child spent hours together, during the long summer afternoons.
In the large woodshed opposite the well, and very near the window of Granpa Jerrold's bedroom, a rude bench had been placed for the use of pails and washbasins, but Grey had early appropriated this to himself and persisted in keeping his playthings there, in spite of all his grandfather's remonstrances to the contrary. If his toys were removed twenty times a day to some other locality, twenty times a day he brought them back, and arranging them upon the bench sat down by them defiantly, kicking vigorously against the side of the house in token of his victory, and wholly unconscious that every thud of his little heels sent a stab to his grandfather's heart.
What if he should kick through the clapboards? What if the floor should cave in? Such were the questions which tortured the half crazed man, as he wiped the perspiration from his face and wondered at the perversity of the boy in selecting that spot of all others, where he must play and sit and kick as only a healthy, active child can do.
But after the day when Grey succeeded in capturing his hands, Granpa Jerrold ceased to interfere with the play-house, and the boy was left in peace upon the bench, though his grandfather often sat near and watched him anxiously, and always seemed relieved when the child tired of that particular spot and wandered elsewhere in quest of amusement.
There was, however, one place in the house which Grey never sought to penetrate, and that was his grandfather's bedroom. It is true he had never been allowed to enter it, for one of Hannah's first lessons was that her father did not like children in his room. Ordinarily this would have made no difference with Grey, who had a way of going where he pleased; but the gloomy appearance of the room where the curtains were always down did not attract him, and he would only go as far as the door and look in, saying to his aunt:
"Bears in there! Grey not go."
And Hannah let him believe in the bears, and breathed more freely when he came away from the door, though she frequently whispered to herself.
"Some time Grey will know, for I must tell him, and he will help me."
This fancy that Grey was to lift the cloud which overshadowed her, was a consolation to Hannah, and helped to make life endurable, when at last his parents returned from Europe, and he went to his home in Boston. After that Grey spent some portion of every summer at the farm-house growing more and more fond of his Aunt Hannah, notwithstanding her quiet manner and the severe plainness of her personal appearance so different from his mother and his Aunt Lucy Grey. His Aunt Hannah always wore a calico dress, or something equally as plain and inexpensive, and her hands were rough and hard with toil, for she never had any one to help her. She could not afford it, she said, and that was always her excuse for the self-denials she practiced. And still Grey knew that she sometimes had money, for he had seen his father give her gold in exchange for bills, and he once asked her why she did not use it for her comfort. There was a look of deep pain in her eyes, and her voice was sadder than its wont, as she replied:
"I cannot touch that money. It is not mine; it would be stealing, to take a penny of it."
Grey saw the question troubled his Aunt Hannah, and so he said no more on the subject, but thought that when he was a man, and had means of his own, he would improve and beautify the old farm-house, which, though scrupulously neat and clean, was in its furnishing plain in the extreme. Not a superfluous article, except what had been sent from Boston, had been bought since he could remember, and the carpet, and chairs, and curtains in the best room had been there ever since his father was a boy. And still Grey loved the place better than Grey's Park, where he was always a welcome guest, and where his Aunt Lucy petted him, if possible, more than did his Aunt Hannah.
And sweet Lucy Grey, in her trailing dress of rich, black silk, with ruffles of soft lace at her throat and wrists, and costly diamonds on her white fingers, made a picture perfectly harmonious with Grey's natural taste and ideas of a lady. She was lovely as are the pictures of Murillo's Madonnas, and Grey, who knew her story, reverenced her as something saintly and pure above any woman he had ever known. And here, perhaps, as well as elsewhere, we may very briefly tell her story, in order that the reader may better understand her character.
CHAPTER III.
LUCY.
She was five years older than her sister Geraldine, and between the two there had been a brother—Robert, or Robin, as he was familiarly called—a little blue-eyed, golden-haired boy, with a face always wreathed in smiles, and a mouth which seemed made to kiss and be kissed in return. He was three years younger than Lucy, who, having been petted so long as the only child, looked somewhat askance at the brother who had come to interfere with her, and as he grew older, and developed that wonderful beauty and winning sweetness for which he was so remarkable, the demon of jealousy took possession of the little girl, who felt at times as if she hated him for the beauty she envied so much.
"Oh, I wish he was blind!" she once said, in anger, when his soft blue eyes had been extolled in her hearing and compared with her own, which were black as midnight and bright as the wintry stars.
And, as if in answer to her wish, an accident occurred not long after, which darkened forever the eyes which had caused her so much annoyance. Just how it happened no one knew. The two children had been playing
