"Well she's here now," interrupted Winny. "Ready to be looked at, which she's likely to be, I should think. Let's have tea."
Tode had been very uncertain as to whether he liked this new revelation of the family; but one word in the mother's sentence smoothed his face, and he sat down opposite the great gray eyes of the grave, self-possessed looking Winny with a satisfied air.
"Now," said the mother, looking kindly on him, "I've always asked a blessing myself at my table, because Jim and Rick they don't neither of 'em lean that way, but if you would do it I think it would be all right and nice."
Tode looked bewildered a moment; then adopted the very wise and straightforward course of saying:
"I don't know what 'asking a blessing' means."
"Don't you, now? Why it's to say a little prayer to God before you eat—just to thank him, you know."
A little gleam of satisfaction shone in Tode's eyes.
"Do good people do that?" he asked.
"Why, yes—all the folks I ever lived with when I was a girl. Deacon Small's family, and Esquire Edward's family, and all, used to."
"Every time they eat?"