"Aunt Emma, don't say such things," she cried. "I care, I do really. You shan't starve,—not while I can work. I'll work harder, and help you. I'll ask Miss Rose about it."
But the half-starved, miserable woman could not check her sobs, once they had begun. The hunger and want and loneliness had worn her health and spirit until a little kindness was more than she could bear. She broke down entirely under it.
Huldah sat with a very grave face all the time they were taking their tea. Things had suddenly become so perplexing, she did not know what to do or think.
"Oh dear," she sighed, "it all seemed so lovely only an hour ago. I thought it was going to last like it for ever and ever." She was so lost in perplexity about Aunt Emma's future, that Mrs. Perry was left to entertain their guest,—to listen, at least, to the tale of her wanderings and sufferings, and the hardships she had endured all her life.
"I've never 'ad nobody to care for me, nor no kindness from anybody, so I haven't got to thank anybody for anything—that's one thing!" the poor foolish woman kept repeating, as though, instead of being ashamed of it, it was something to be proud of.
"As we sow, we reap," thought Aunt Martha; the truth of the words had come home to her many times, since she had taken in the two friendless waifs. Dick and Huldah would have loved this woman too, if she had allowed them to. She grew a little impatient of the long complainings. "We don't get love back, if we don't give any," she said at last.
"Who'd I got? Who'd want me to love them?" she demanded, peevishly.
"Why, the child, for one, and Dick, and that poor old horse, not to speak of your husband."
Emma Smith was silent. It had never before entered her head that to be loved one must love, that the way to win it is to think of others first, and self last. She ceased her complaining, as she realised for the first time that others besides herself had something to complain of. She had always been one of those who are so full of pity for themselves that they never have time to feel pity for others.
By the time the meal was finished Huldah's mind was made up. She must talk to Miss Rose about things. The matter seemed so puzzling, so complicated, she could not sort out the right and the wrong of it at all. It was all beyond her. Aunt Martha fell in with the plan at once.