"I've come to the conclusion the Lord knows his business best and is capable of attending to it. When we meddle we make a rather poor fist of it. Betty has a lot of morning-glories out there," nodding her head, "and I said to her 'They're poor frail things: why not put out a hop vine or red beans? They can't stand a bit of sun, like Jonah's gourd.' But she only laughed—her father had that way when he didn't want to argue. When they came to bloom they were sights to behold, like the early morning when the sun is rising, and you see such beautiful colors. They used to nod to each other and swing back and forth, like people coming to call, then they said good-by and were off. The Lord meant 'em just to look pretty and they did."
"Uncle Win likes them so much. Miss Recompense had a whole lattice full of them. Oh, did you mean I was like a morning glory? Haven't I some other uses?"
"You're always fresh and blossoming every day. That's a use. You come in with a little greeting that warms one's heart. You were a great delight to Uncle Leverett, and I don't know what Uncle Winthrop would have done without you, Cary being away. And how Solomon took to you, when he was awful shy of strangers! He must have liked you uncommon to be willing to stay in a strange place, for cats cannot bear to be moved about. Maybe 'twould been the same if you had not been so pretty to look at, but the Lord made you the way he wanted you, and you haven't spoiled yourself a bit."
Doris blushed. Compliments were quite a new thing with Aunt Priscilla.
"What would you have done with me?" Doris asked again, after a long pause.
"You won't like to hear it. I ought to confess it because it was a sin, a sort of meddling with the Lord's plans. You see, I'd taken it in my head that someone would have to give you a home. It didn't seem as if that old ma'shland would be good for anything, and I knew your father wasn't rich. Winthrop Adams was one of the finicky kind and quite put about to know what to do with you. So I thought if there didn't any place open, for Elizabeth Leverett was quite wrapped up in her grandchildren, that"—hesitatingly—"when things were straightened out a bit, I'd offer——"
"That would have been good of you——"
"No, it wasn't goodness," interrupted Aunt Priscilla. "I thought I should want someone, with Polly getting old. I'd have expected you to work, though I'd have done the fair thing by you, and left you some money in the end. I was a little jealous when everybody took to you so. I was sure you'd be spoiled. And, though you've got that music thing and go among the quality, and are pretty as a pink, and Winthrop Adams thinks you a nonesuch, you come in here in plain everyday fashion and talk and read and make it sunshiny for everybody. So, you see, the Lord knew, and it is just as if he said, 'Priscilla Perkins, your way doesn't suit at all. There's something in the world besides work and saving money. There's room enough in the world for a hill of potatoes and a morning-glory made of silk and dew if it doesn't bloom but just one morning. It's a smile, and there are others to follow, and it is a thousand times better than frowns.'"
"And if there had been no money, and I had wanted a home, would you have given me one?" she asked in a soft, tremulous tone.
"Yes, child. And I couldn't have worked you quite like poor little Elizabeth was worked. I didn't think there was so much money, or that that lady in England would have left you a legacy or that Winthrop Adams would come to believing that he couldn't live without you."