“Just as you please; I thank you both; but it really makes no difference to me what I eat or drink,” said Eudora, dejectedly.
“Reckon it would, though, if you knew what sort of food we sarve out to the others,” thought Mrs. Barton as she left the cell and locked the door after her.
The grating of that lock! How it always jarred upon the nerves of the sensitive girl! After an absence of about fifteen minutes, Mrs. Barton returned, bearing a tray upon which was neatly arranged a breakfast of coffee, toast, ham, and poached eggs.
Nature! wise mother!—you never suffer any degree of mental anguish to utterly destroy the appetite of the young. A minute before the entrance of the tray the hapless girl thought she could not eat; but a minute after, the savory smell of the well-chosen breakfast assailed her senses, creating hunger, notwithstanding all her grief, anxiety, and terror. The gossip of the good-natured Mrs. Barton seasoned the repast; and at the end of half an hour our poor Eudora had made a good and refreshing meal, for which she felt all the better.
“And now, then, what can I bring you to pass away the time with, until some of your friends call?” said Mrs. Barton.
“A pocket Bible if you please; nothing more.”
“But lor’, Miss, that’s very solemn sort of study for week-a-days; hadn’t you better have something funny, as would liven you up like?”
“There are times when no book but the one can be read,” said Eudora.
“Very well, Miss; to be sure you shall have it,” replied the woman, taking the tray and retiring.
An hour afterward, while Eudora was engaged in seeking to draw comfort and strength from the pages of the blessed volume, the cell door was opened and a veiled lady was ushered in by Miss Barton, who immediately re-locked the door and withdrew.