"Remember his own message to every one under a cloud--'cast all thy care upon him, for he careth for thee;'--thou mayest keep none of it;--and then the peace that passeth understanding shall keep thee. 'So he giveth his beloved sleep.'"
Fleda wept for a minute on the old lady's neck, and then she looked up, dried her tears, and sat down with a face greatly quieted and lightened of its burden; while aunt Miriam once more went back to her work. The one wrought and the other looked on in silence.
The cruller were all done at last; the great bread-trough was filled and set away; the remnant of the fat was carefully disposed of, and aunt Miriam's handmaid was called in to "take the watch." She herself and her visitor adjourned to the sitting-room.
"Well," said Fleda, in a tone again steady and clear,--"I must go home to see about getting up a dinner. I am the greatest hand at making something out of nothing, aunt Miriam, that ever you saw. There is nothing like practice. I only wish the man uncle Orrin talks about would come along once in a while."
"Who was that?" said aunt Miriam.
"A man that used to go about from house to house," said Fleda laughing, "when the cottages were making soup, with a ham-bone to give it a relish, and he used to charge them so much for a dip, and so much for a wallop."
"Come, come, I can do as much for you as that," said aunt Miriam, proceeding to her store-pantry,--"see here--wouldn't this be as good as a ham-bone?" said she, bringing out of it a fat fowl;--"how would a wallop of this do?"
"Admirably!--only--the ham-bone used to come out again,--and I am confident this never would."
"Well I guess I'll stand that," said aunt Miriam smiling,--"you wouldn't mind carrying this under your cloak, would you?"
"I have no doubt I shall go home lighter with it than without it, ma'am,--thank you, dear aunty!--dear aunt Miriam!"