“He’s a good fellow. I will not stand in his way.”
“For pity’s sake, Roger, don’t think you must do anything,” cried Marion, dismayed; “let her alone. He will take care of himself.”
“I shall certainly let her alone. He is so artless that he will be taken care of. It is like him to stumble into the best thing in the universe and then wonder how he ever got it.”
“I hope you don’t call Meadow Centre one of the best things,” retorted Marion.
“It’s a good place for a man to make something of himself; he is writing sermons that will make a stir somewhere. Meadow Centre is to him what Paul’s three years in Arabia were to him.”
“Then we must do our best to make Judith ready—”
“What a plotter you are,” he exclaimed, angrily; then, more quietly: “But we will make Judith ready,” and he walked off with a laugh that was a mixture of things.
This day, in which God’s daily bread and his daily will were given to Judith as upon all the other days, was one of the very happiest days of her happy life.
Roger’s kiss gave her an undefined sense of safety and protection; if she were not wise enough to decide when the time came she would take refuge in that safety and protection, and—another kiss.
That evening Joe came for her, saying Aunt Rody was worse. She went home with him, and “watched” with Aunt Affy, until poor Aunt Rody passed away from the home she had toiled so unceasingly for and taken so little comfort in. One week she stayed with Aunt Affy: “I miss her so,” wept Aunt Affy broken-heartedly; “I never was in the world without her before.”