Old Madge gat her up, and bustled about, unpacking of the basket, and crying out o’ pleasure as she came to each thing and told what it were. But daft Madge seemed not much to care what were therein, though she was ever wont dearly to love sweets, there being (I reckon) so few pleasures she had wit for. Only she sat still, gazing from Aunt Joyce to me, and smiling on us.
“What art thinking, Madge?” saith Aunt Joyce.
For, natural (idiot) though she be, Madge is alway thinking. ’Tis very nigh as though there were a soul within her which tried hard to see through the smoked glass of her poor brains. Nay, I take it, so there is.
“I were thinking,” saith she, “a-looking on your faces, what like it’ll be to see His Face.”
Madge hath rarely any name for God. It is mostly “He.”
“Wouldst love to see it, Madge?” saith Aunt Joyce.
“Shall,” quoth she, “right soon. He sent me word, Mistress Joyce, yestereven.”
“Ay,” saith old Isaac, “she reckons she’s going.”
“Wilt be glad, Madge?” saith Aunt Joyce, softly.
“Glad!” she makes answer. “Eh, Mistress Joyce—glad! Why, ’twill be better than plum-porridge!”