“Off Pollock Rip Shoals. A bad and fearsome place that, where many an honest fellow has sunk to his last sleep.” She dashed a tear from her eye, and laid her hand for an instant upon her widow’s cap. Then she went on more cheerfully, as if time had taught her resignation: “But that’s a gone-by. Son’s future isn’t. It’s laid upon me by the Lord to be both father and mother to the boy and I must study what’s for his best, not mine. Ephraim wrote I was to consult you who are a Judge and wise. He said in his letter that he hadn’t been a sort of general-utility-man in your office thus long without knowing it wasn’t your best paying clients that got your best advice. That, wrote Ephraim, came out of your heart for the widows and orphans. We’re that, son and I, and—What a garrulous creature I am!”
All the time the little woman had been talking she had also been preparing for the meal; and it now being ready to serve she stepped to the rear door, opening on the place where the girls were sitting, and announced:
“Our finnan haddie and greens are ready, young ladies, if you will come and partake of it. Also, lest you be disappointed, I’ll say that there’s a ‘John’s Delight’ in the ‘steamer,’ and a dish of the best apples in the Province for the sweeties. Eh? What, my dear?”
To Dorothy’s utter amazement Molly was doing a very rude thing. She had risen and made her very prettiest courtesy, but had supplemented this act of respect by the petition:
“Please, Mrs. Cook, may we have ours out here, on these steps?”
“Why, Molly!” cried her chum, in reproof. “The idea of giving all that trouble!”
“No trouble whatever, but a pleasure,” replied the hostess, although she, also, was surprised.
Molly wheeled upon Dorothy, demanding:
“Wouldn’t you like it here? Could you find a lovelier place to eat in? As for making trouble, I don’t want to do that. I—If Mrs. Cook will just put it on one plate I’ll fetch it here for us both. It would be like a picnic in a garden; and you could stay here and—and watch.”
“Watch? What am I to watch, except these beautiful flowers?” asked Dolly, even further surprised.