"We will talk no more politics!"
"No! but whether one is Jacobin or anything else you will, the principal thing is to keep in good temper."
She then came and embraced me, and said:
"My poor Joseph! I have been thinking of you from morning till night. But all is well now and I am satisfied."
She ran into the kitchen and commenced bustling among the kettles to prepare something to regale us with, while Mr. Goulden placed his cane in a corner and hung his great hat upon it, and sat down with an air of contentment near the hearth.
"What fine weather!" he exclaimed, "how green and flourishing everything is! How happy I should be to live in the fields, to see the hedges and apple-trees and plum-trees from my windows, covered with their red and white blossoms!"
He was gay as a lark, and we all should have been except for the thoughts of the war which were constantly coming into our heads.
"Leave all that, mother," said Catherine, "I will get the dinner to-day as I used to do; go and sit down quietly with Mr. Goulden."
"But you do not know where anything is, I have disarranged everything," said aunt.
"Sit down, I beg you," said Catherine, "I shall find the butter and the eggs and the flour and everything that is necessary."