“Well, you are gathering a good deal of food together in spite of your contempt for it,” put in Paul. “That’s the sixth slice! I have kept tab on you.”
“Why not? I always think plain bread and butter is about the best thing there is.”
“Yes, why not?” asked Molly, calling her little cook Kizzie to prepare another plate of the desirable article. “Aunt Clay, you had better change your mind and have some tea and bread and butter.”
Mrs. Sarah Clay had driven over in state from her home when she heard Kent had arrived. She wanted to hear the latest news, also to tender her advice as to what he was to do now. She presented the same uncompromising front as of yore, although her back had given way somewhat to the weight of years. Judy Kean always said she had a hard face and a soft figure. This soft figure she poured into tight basques, evidently determined to try to make it live up to her face.
“Tea!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I never eat between meals.”
“But this is a meal, in a way,” said Molly hospitably bent, as was her wont, on feeding people.
“A meal! Whoever heard of tea and bread and butter comprising a meal?” and the stern aunt stalked to the end of the porch where the baby lay in her basket, kicking her pink heels in the air in an ecstasy of joy over being in the world.
“Molly, this baby has on too few clothes. What can you be thinking of, having the child barefooted and nothing on but this muslin slip over her arms? She is positively blue with cold.”
Molly flew to her darling but found her glowing and warm. “Why, Aunt Clay, only feel her hands and feet! She is as warm as toast. The doctor cautioned me against wrapping her up too much. He says little babies are much warmer than we are.”
“Well, have your own way! Of course, although I am older than your mother, I know nothing at all.”