"There aint nothin' to do, child, 'cept what I'm doin'. The breakfast table is sot. I guess you've had your hands full, as well as the rest of us. But I declare you've kept things pretty straight. I don't let the butter set in the pantry, though; it goes down cellar when I'm to home."
"That kitchen pantry is cold, Miss Redwood."
"It's too cold, child. Butter hadn't ought to be where it kin freeze, or get freezing hard; it takes the sweetness out of it. You didn't know that. And the broom and pan I left at the head of the coal stairs. They ain't there now."
Matilda fetched them.
"The minister said you kept things in train, as if you'd been older," Miss Redwood went on. "I was always askin'; and he made me feel pretty comfortable. He said he was."
"We have had a very nice time, Miss Redwood. We hadn't the least trouble about anything."
"Trouble was our meat and drink down yonder," said Miss Redwood. "I thought two o' them poor furriners would surely give up; but they didn't; and it's over with. Praise the Lord! And I'm as glad to be home again as if I had found a fortin. But I was glad to be there, too. When a man—or a woman—knows she's in her place, she's just in the pleasantest spot she kin get to; so I think. And I knew I was in my place there. But dear, Mrs. Laval thinks your place is with her now; so she bid me tell you to be ready."
"When?"
"Well, some time along in the morning she will send the carriage to bring you, she said."
"Has Francis come back?"