hrough. Sometimes folks has said, 'There, there, Mis' Hender, what be
you goin' to say now?' but I've always told 'em to wait. I knew you
saw your reasons. You was always an honest boy." The tears started and
shone in her kind eyes. Her face showed that she had waged a bitter
war with poverty and sorrow, but the look of affection that it wore,
and the warm touch of her hard hand, misshapen and worn with toil,
touched her old friend in his inmost heart, and for a minute neither
could speak.

"They do say that women folks have got no natural head for politics,
but I always could seem to sense what was goin' on in Washington, if
there was any sense to it," said grandmother Hender at last.

"Nobody could puzzle you at school, I remember," answered Mr. Laneway,
and they both laughed heartily. "But surely this granddaughter does
not make your household? You have sons?"

"Two beside her father. He died; but they're both away, up toward
Canada, buying cattle. We are getting along considerable well these
last few years, since they got a mite o' capital together; but the old
farm wasn't really able to maintain us, with the heavy expenses that
fell on us unexpected year by year. I've seen a great sight of
trouble, Joe. My boy John, Marilla's father, and his nice wife,--I
lost 'em both early, when Marilla was but a child. John was the flower
o' my family. He would have made a name for himself. You would have
taken to John."

"I was sorry to hear of your loss," said Mr. Laneway. "He was a brave
man. I know what he did at Fredericksburg. You remember that I lost my
wife and my only son?"

There was a silence between the friends, who had no need for words
now; they understood each other's heart only too well. Marilla, who
sat near them, rose and went out of the room.

"Yes, yes, daughter," said Mrs. Hender, calling her back, "we ought to
be thinkin' about supper."

"I was going to light a little fire in the parlor," explained Marilla,
with a slight tone of rebuke in her clear girlish voice.

"Oh, no, you ain't,--not now, at least," protested the elder woman
decidedly. "Now, Joseph, what should you like to have for supper? I
wish to my heart I had some fried turnovers, like those you used to
come after when you was a boy. I can make 'em just about the same as
mother did. I'll be bound you've thought of some old-fashioned dish
that you'd relish for your supper."

"Rye drop-cakes, then, if they wouldn't give you too much troub