Hetty was brooding over the fire.
"That's what I told him," she went on. "An' I don't. I don't know 's ever I did, to speak of. It never really come up till now. He repeated texts o' Scriptur'. 'Parson,' says I, 'you ain't a woman that had one son, as good a boy as ever stepped, an' then lost him. 'Tain't a week,' says I, 'sence he was carried out o' this house. Don't you talk to me about God.'"
Lucy was looking at her with eloquent responses in her face. Hetty glanced up, and partly understood them.
"Nor you neither, Lucy," she made haste to say. "You're terrible pious, an' you've had your troubles, an' they've be'n heavy; but you ain't had an' lost. If I could take it on me to-day to lay there as you be, knowin' I shouldn't get up no more, I'd jump at it if I could have Willard back, whistlin' round an' cuttin' up didos. Yes, I would."
"I guess you would," murmured Lucy to herself. "It's too bad—too bad."
There was a step on the doorstone, and Caroline came in. She was Lucy's sister, gaunt and dark-eyed, with high cheek-bones, and the red of health upon them. She regarded Hetty piercingly.
"You got company over to your house?" she asked at once.
"No," Hetty answered. She added bitterly, "It's stiller'n the grave. I don't expect company no more."
"Well," commented Caroline.
She had laid aside her shawl, and began fruitful sallies about the kitchen, putting in a stick of wood, catching off the lid from the pot, to regard the dinner with a frowning brow, and then sitting down to extricate from her pocket a small something rolled in her handkerchief.