"My poor girl, I have not seen you," embracing me, half blind with crying, "How pale you are! How sunken! Keep up as well as you can. I little thought that the worthless one of us two would be left to suffer. Go to your father, as soon as possible."
"Drink this tea right down, Mercy," said Temperance, holding a cup before her. "There isn't much to eat in the house. Of all times in the world to be without good victuals! What could Hepsey have meant?"
"Poor old soul," Aunt Merce replied, "she is quite broken. Fanny had to help her upstairs."
The kitchen door opened, and Temperance's husband, Abram, came in.
"Good Lord!" she said in an irate voice, "have you come, too? Did you think I couldn't get home to get your breakfast?"
She hung the kettle on the fire again, muttering too low for him to hear: "Some folks could be spared better than other folks."
Abram shoved back his hat. "'The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,' but she is a dreadful loss to the poor. There's my poor boy, whose clothes—"
"Ain't he the beatum of all the men that ever you see?" broke in Temperance, taking to him a large piece of pie, which he took with a short laugh, and sat down to eat. I could not help exchanging a look with Aunt Merce; we both laughed. Veronica, lost in revery, paid no attention to anything about her. I saw that Temperance suffered; she was perplexed and irritated.
"Let Abram stay, if he likes," I whispered to her; "and be sure to stay yourself, for you are needed."
She brightened with an expression of gratitude. "He is a nuisance," she whispered back; "but as I made a fool of myself, I must be punished according to my folly. I'll stay, you may depend. I'll do everything for you. I vow I am mad, that I ever went away."