words on your lips,--and you a
perfessor!"

Grandpa scratched his head in drowsy bewilderment, passed his hand once
or twice over the coarse stubble on his face, and again committed himself
helplessly to the sweet obliviousness of slumber.

I drew my chair up confidentially close to Grandma Keeler's, and rested
my arms on the table as I looked into her face.

"Grandma!" I said, for I knew that she was better pleased to have me call
her that; "I begin to think that I ought never to have come to Wallencamp
on a mission, that perhaps it would be just as well if I had never come
to Wallencamp at all, I mean. I didn't think. At first, it seemed more
than anything else, like something very new to entertain myself with. I
didn't think enough of the responsibility. Then, perhaps, I thought too
much of it. I don't know. I wish I were out of it all. Grandma, I never
tried to do the right thing so hard before in my life. I never worked so
hard before--and I don't mind that; but I meant it all for the best, and
it's no use, it's just like all the rest. I'm tired. I wish I were out of
it."

"Wall, thar' now, darlin'," said Grandma, employing to the full her tone
of infinite consolation. "You ain't the first one as mistook a stump for
livin' creetur in the night, and don't you talk about givin' up nor
nothin' like it, darlin', for we couldn't do without you noways--nor you
without us, for yet a while, I'm thinkin', though it does seem
strange--and never you mind one straw for what Madeline said, for she was
kind o' out to-night, anyway, not having got no letter from Philander, I
suppose. But then she ought not to feel so. Why, there was time and time
agin that I didn't git no letter from Bijonah Keeler when he was
voyagin', and to be sure, they wasn't much better than nothin' when they
did come; for pa"--Grandma cast a calmly comprehensive glance at her
unconscious mate--"pa was a man that had a great many idees in general,
but, when he set down to write a letter, somehow he seemed to consider
that it wasn't no place for idees, a letter wasn't--seemed as though he
managed a'most a purpose not to get none in."

"Grandma," I said, leaning forward, laughing, and folding my hands in her
lap, "you're the best comforter I know of."

"Wall, thar'," said she; "it's a good deal in feelin's, and Madeline
ain't r'al well, so she kind o' allows 'em to overcome her sometimes."

"And what did she mean by saying that about Rebecca?" I asked.