"No, indeed, I am glad. I enjoyed all I have been telling you about, but I think I enjoyed it quite long enough. It is time for me to be here. Is the frost well out of the ground yet?"
"Mr. Bince has been ploughin"."
"Has he? I"m glad. Then I"ll put in some peas to-morrow. O yes! I am glad to be home, grandma." Her hand nestled in one of those worn, bony ones affectionately.
"Could you live just right there, Lois?"
"I tried, grandma."
"Did all that help you?"
"I don"t know that it hindered. It might not be good for always; but I was there only for a little while, and I just took the pleasure of it."
"Seems to me, you was there a pretty long spell to be called "a little while." Ain"t it a dangerous kind o" pleasure, Lois? Didn"t you never get tempted?"
"Tempted to what, grandma?"
"I don" know! To want to live easy."
"Would that be wrong?" said Lois, putting her soft cheek alongside the withered one, so that her wavy hair brushed it caressingly. Perhaps it was unconscious bribery. But Mrs. Armadale was never bribed.
"It wouldn"t be right, Lois, if it made you want to get out o" your duties."
"I think it didn"t, grandma. I"m all ready for them. And your dinner is the first thing. Madge and Charity--you say they are gone to New Haven?"
"Charity"s tooth tormented her so, and Madge wanted to get a bonnet; and they thought they"d make one job of it. They didn"t know you was comin" to-day, and they thought they"d just hit it to go before you come. They won"t be back early, nother."
"What have they left for your dinner?" said Lois, going to rummage.
"Grandma, here"s nothing at all!"
"An egg"ll do, dear. They didn"t calkilate for you."
"An egg will do for me," said Lois, laughing; "but there"s only a crust of bread."
"Madge calkilated to make tea biscuits after she come home."
"Then I"ll do that now."
Lois stripped up the sleeves from her shapely arms, and presently was very busy at the great kitchen table, with the board before her covered with white cakes, and the cutter and rolling pin still at work producing more. Then the fire was made up, and the tin baker set in front of the blaze, charged with a panful for baking. Lois stripped down her sleeves and set the table, cut ham and fried it, fried eggs, and soon sat opposite Mrs. Armadale pouring her out a cup of tea.
"This is cosy!" she exclaimed. "It is nice to have you all alone for the first, grandma. What"s the news?"
"Ain"t no news, child. Mrs. Saddler"s been to New London for a week."
"And I have come home. Is that all?"
"I don"t make no count o" news, child. "One generation pa.s.seth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever.""
"But one likes to hear of the things that change, grandma."
"Do "ee? I like to hear of the things that remain."
"But grandma! the earth itself changes; at least it is as different in different places as anything can be."
"Some"s cold, and some"s hot," observed the old lady.
"It is much more than that. The trees are different, and the fruits are different; and the animals; and the country is different, and the buildings, and the people"s dresses."
"The men and women is the same," said the old lady contentedly.
"But no, not even that, grandma. They are as different as they can be, and still be men and women."
""As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." Be the New York folks so queer, then, Lois?"
"O no, not the New York people; though they are different too; quite different from Shampuashuh--"
"How?"
Lois did not want to say. Her grandmother, she thought, could not understand her; and if she could understand, she thought she would be perhaps hurt. She turned the conversation. Then came the clearing away the remains of dinner; washing the dishes; baking the rest of the tea-cakes; cleansing and putting away the baker; preparing flour for next day"s bread-making; making her own bed and putting her room in order; doing work in the dairy which Madge was not at home to take care of; brushing up the kitchen, putting on the kettle, setting the table for tea. Altogether Lois had a busy two or three hours, before she could put on her afternoon dress and come and sit down by her grandmother.
"It is a change!" she said, smiling. "Such a different life from what I have been living. You can"t think, grandma, what a contrast between this afternoon and last Friday."
"What was then?"
"I was sitting in Mrs. Wishart"s drawing-room, doing nothing but play work, and a gentleman talking to me."
"Why was he talking to _you?_ Warn"t Mrs. Wishart there?"
"No; she was out."
"What did he talk to you for?"
"I was the only one there was," said Lois. But looking back, she could not avoid the thought that Mr. Dillwyn"s long stay and conversation had not been solely a taking up with what he could get.
"He could have gone away," said Mrs. Armadale, echoing her thought.
"I do not think he wanted to go away. I think he liked to talk to me."
It was very odd too, she thought.
"And did you like to talk to him?"
"Yes. You know I hare not much to talk about; but somehow he seemed to find out what there was."
"Had _he_ much to talk about?"
"I think there is no end to that," said Lois. "He has been all over the world and seen everything; and he is a man of sense, to care for the things that are worth while; and he is educated; and it is very entertaining to hear him talk."
"Who is he? A young man?"