"I do not know." The words came faint.
"Does it trouble you, mother?"
"It need not trouble you, Rotha. It cannot happen unless the Lord will; and that is enough. Now you may carry these pea pods out and give them to the pigs."
"Mother," said Rotha as she slowly rose and laid away her book, "all you say makes me wish more than ever that I were a princess, or something."
"You may be something," said Mrs. Carpenter laughing slightly, but with a very sweet merriment. "Now take away this basket."
Rotha stooped for the basket, and then stood still, looking out of the window. Across the intervening piece of kitchen garden, rows of peas and tufts of asparagus greenery, her eye went to the road, where a buggy had just stopped.
"Maybe something is going to happen now," she said. "Who is that, mother? There is somebody getting out of a wagon and tying his horse;—now he is coming in. It is 'Siah Barker, mother."
Mrs. Carpenter paused to look out of the window, and then hastily throwing her peas into the pot of boiling water, went herself to the door. A young countryman met her there, with a whip in his hand.
"Mornin', Mis' Carpenter. Kin you help the distressed?"
"What's the matter, 'Siah?"