A very quiet life was led by Avice and Bertha. The house work was done by the two in the early morning—cleaning, washing, baking, churning, and brewing, as they were severally needed; and in the afternoon they sat down to their work, enlivened either by singing or conversation. Sometimes both were silent, and when that was the case, unknown to Avice, Bertha was generally watching her features, and trying to read their meaning. At length, one evening after a long silence, she suddenly broke the stillness with a blunt question.
“Aunt, I wish you would tell me what you are thinking of when you look so.”
“How do I look, Bertha?”
“As if you were looking at something which nobody could see but yourself. Sometimes it seems to be something pretty, and sometimes something shocking; but oftener than either, something just a little sad, and yet as if there were pleasantness about it. I don’t know exactly how to describe it.”
“That will do. When a woman comes to fifty years, little Bertha, there are plenty of things in the past of her life, which nobody can see who did not go through them with her. And often those who did so cannot see them. That will leave a scar upon one which makes not a scratch upon another.”
“But of what were you thinking, Aunt, if I may know?”
“That thou mayest. I fancy, when thou spakest, I was thinking—as I very often do—about my little Lady.”
“Now, if Aunt Avice is very good,” said Bertha insinuatingly, and with brightened eyes, “that means a story.”
Aunt Avice smiled. “Ay, thou shalt have thy story. Only let us be sure first that all is done which need be. Cast a few more chips on the fire, and light another pine-torch; that is burnt nigh out. And see thy bodkin on the floor—careless child!”
Bertha jumped up and obeyed. From one corner of the room, where lay a heap of neatly-cut faggots, she brought a handful, and threw it into the wide fire-place, which stretched across half one side of the room, and had no grate, the fire burning on the stone hearth: then from a pile of long pointed stakes of pitch pine, she brought one, lighted it, and set it in an iron frame by the fire-place made for that purpose; and lastly, she picked up from the brick floor an article of iron, about a foot in length, and nearly as thick as her little finger, which she called a bodkin, but which we should think very rude and clumsy indeed.