But the lovely old Friend had had time to regain her wonted calmness, and if the tone in which she responded was gentle in the extreme, it was also equally firm.
“Ruth has spoken the right word, though I wish that she had done so more patiently. When Oliver built this house he built it big and roomy. ‘There must be space enough in it to hold all our household and the children which shall come after them,’ he said. Lydia’s flock must find a resting-place beneath the old roof-tree; but, if they are anything like their mother before them, they will not bring unhappiness to anybody.”
A quiet sadness stole over the placid features under the snowy cap, and no one not utterly selfish would have disturbed the mistress of the homestead by any further objection.
When the feeble lad, who absorbed as his right so much of the family attention, again began his impatient protest, Grandmother Kinsolving rose and followed Ruth.
Then arose such a howl of distress as speedily drove Grandmother Capers to the verge of hysterics and brought Content flying in from the orchard, where she had been writing a letter to her father.
“O Melville! what has happened? Are you worse,—suffering so terribly? Can I do anything for you?”
Melville ceased shrieking and broke into a subdued roar, as ominous to his slave, Grandmother Capers, as it was amusing to Content. But she veiled the mirth in her brown eyes, and went on speaking in that sort of soothing fashion which mothers use to a fretful infant.
Suddenly the cripple became silent, and looked up into his cousin’s face with an eagerness of expression that showed how little real his grief had been. “Say, Content, does Aunt Ruth know that my heart is affected, and that the doctor says I must have perfect quiet?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. You forget, Melville, that I am almost a stranger to our aunt.”
“But—but she’s your aunt, you know; you ought to know her!” exclaimed the lad.