"Wall, it's always best to be on the safe side, any way," said Aunt Bettie; "you tell her she needn't be afraid about the doughnuts; I'll have a fresh batch ready agin the time she comes."
The business of eating and drinking so occupied the girls' attention, that they did not enter into conversation as readily as usual; and after the first flush of excitement at meeting her young friends and dispensing her hospitality was over, Aunt Bettie, too, subsided into a quiet, subdued manner, which was quite foreign to her usual brisk talkativeness.
She sat in her high-backed rocking-chair, looking at the girls over her silver-bowed spectacles, with a sad, musing expression, as if the sight of them called up some unhappy thought.
This unusual restraint on the part of their hostess communicated itself in a certain degree to her visitors, though they did not themselves remark the cause of their silence, and their visit was made shorter than usual.
It was Marion who first made the move to go; and although Aunt Bettie pressed them to remain she did not urge it with her accustomed eagerness.
They had got just beyond the bend of the road which hid the old farm-house from view, when Marion exclaimed, "You run on, Rose, with the others; I believe I left my gloves on the table; don't wait for me, I'll catch up with you;" and before Rose could beg to go back with her, she had turned round and ran off up the road. She ran quickly, but noiselessly along, and was back to the farm-house in a few moments, and was surprised to find Aunt Bettie sitting on the door-step with her head buried in her hands. Going up to her, she found her weeping as if her heart would break.
"Aunt Bettie!" she said, in her gentlest tones, "Aunt Bettie! It's only Marion. What is the matter? I thought you seemed worried about something, and came back to see if I couldn't help you; can't I?"
"Oh, dear!" sobbed the poor woman. "It may be dreadful wicked of me, but the sight of you young things, all lookin' so bright and happy, did make me feel awful bad, for I couldn't help thinking o' my own darter Jemimy."
"Why, what is the matter with her, auntie? Where is she?"
"The Lord knows, dear, I don't. Not a blessed word hev I heerd from her it's going on eight weeks. I've writ, and Jabe he's writ, but we haint had a sign of an answer, and I'm afraid she's dead, or perhaps wus;" and the poor woman rocked herself back and forth, completely overcome by her grief.