'How natural it all looks again! Oh, I love this old kitchen so! Baby dear, only look at it wid him pitty, pitty eyes, and him tongue out of his mousy! But who put the flour-riddle up there. And look at the pestle and mortar, and rust I declare in the patty pans! And a book, positively a dirty book, where the clean skewers ought to hang! Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!'
'You may just as well cease lamenting,' I said, 'for you can't alter Lizzie's nature, and you will only make mother uncomfortable, and perhaps have a quarrel with Lizzie, who is proud as Punch of her housekeeping.'
'She,' cried Annie, with all the contempt that could be compressed in a syllable. 'Well, John, no doubt you are right about it. I will try not to notice things. But it is a hard thing, after all my care, to see everything going to ruin. But what can be expected of a girl who knows all the kings of Carthage?'
'There were no kings of Carthage, Annie. They were called, why let me see—they were called—oh, something else.'
'Never mind what they were called,' said Annie; 'will they cook our dinner for us? But now, John, I am in such trouble. All this talk is make-believe.'
'Don't you cry, my dear: don't cry, my darling sister,' I answered, as she dropped into the worn place of the settle, and bent above her infant, rocking as if both their hearts were one: 'don't you know, Annie, I cannot tell, but I know, or at least I mean, I have heard the men of experience say, it is so bad for the baby.'
'Perhaps I know that as well as you do, John,' said Annie, looking up at me with a gleam of her old laughing: 'but how can I help crying; I am in such trouble.'
'Tell me what it is, my dear. Any grief of yours will vex me greatly; but I will try to bear it.'
'Then, John, it is just this. Tom has gone off with the rebels; and you must, oh, you must go after him.'