“What time I am afraid, I will
Trust in Thee.”
Aunt Rody had a way of bringing her work and sitting somewhere near when Marion came; the girl’s vivacity, and gossip of village folks, gossip in its heavenliest sense, attracted the hard-visaged, hard-handed, sharp-tongued old woman.
An afternoon with Marion Kenney was to the old woman, who never read stories, what a volume of short stories is to other people; stories, humorous, pathetic, and always with a touch of the best in life. And, somehow, the best found an answering chord in something in Aunt Rody.
But for that something nobody could have lived in the house with Aunt Rody.
The door across the hall was open; all was quiet within the small bedroom.
For the world Aunt Rody would not acknowledge any weakness by bringing her chair into Affy’s room, or even into the entry. She was not fond of company; and all Bensalem knew it. Cephas asked her years ago if she wanted to be buried in a corner of the graveyard all by herself and the brambles.
“Heaven is a sociable place, Rody, and you might as well get used to it.”
Aunt Affy’s story was done, there was no sound in the other bedroom; Judith picked among her colored strips.
“I had a letter from my cousin Don last night, Miss Marion,” said Judith, “and he said he was glad I loved the parsonage.”