Linda was silent before she said tremulously, "My brother."
"Ah, my dear, that is all wrong. Don't you believe that you have your brother still? If he were in Europe, in China, in India, wouldn't you still have him? Even if he were in some unreachable place like the South Pole, he would still be your brother, and now because he has gone a little further away, is he not yours just the same?"
"Oh, Miss Ri, sometimes I am afraid I doubt it."
"But I know it, for there was One who said, 'If it were not so, I would have told you.' Even the greatest scoffer among us must admit that our Lord was one who did speak the truth; that is what comforts."
Linda laid her cheek against the other woman's hand. "That does comfort," she said. "I never saw it that way before. Is it that, Miss Ri, that keeps you almost always so bright and happy? You who have lost all your nearest and dearest, too? You so seldom get worried or blue."
"Yes, I suppose it is that and another reason," returned Miss Ri, unwilling to continue so serious a talk.
"And what is the other?"
"I try to make it a rule never to get mad with fools," replied Miss Ri with a laugh. "Of course, I don't always succeed, but the trying helps a lot."
Just here Phebe's head appeared at the door. "Miss Ri, I cain't find no tater-masher. What I gwine do?"
"Oh, dear me; let me see. Oh, yes, I remember; Randy threw it at black Wally the other day when he was pestering her. She didn't hit him and I reckon she never troubled herself to pick up the potato-masher; you'll find it somewhere about the back yard. Randy certainly has a temper, for all she is so slow in other ways. Come along, Verlinda; I promised to show you that old wine-cooler we were talking about the other day. I found it down cellar, when the men were clearing out the trash; I've had it done over, and it isn't bad." She led the way to the living-room, which, rich in old mahogany, displayed an added treasure in the quaint wine-cooler, in which the bottles could lie slanting, around the central receptacle for ice.