oes to put in the stove, just as if folks hadn't been
sick and dying, you may say, and getting well, and all that, since I
touched 'em last. Well! life's a queer thing; and it don't go by the
rule of three, not by no means."

"What rule does it go by?" said Matilda, leaning on the table and
looking up at the housekeeper.

"La! I don't know," said Miss Redwood. "I know what I've been workin'
by all these weeks, pretty much; I kept at my multiplication table; but
I couldn't get no further most days than the very beginning--'Once one
is one.' I tried hard to make it out two; but 'twas beyond me. I've
learned that much, anyhow."

"Didn't Mrs. Laval help?"

"She helped all she could, poor critter, till she was 'most beat out. I
declare I was sorry for her, next to the sick ones. She did all she
could. She turned in to cook; and she didn't know no more about it than
I know about talkin' any language beside my own. Not so much; for I kin
tell French when I hear it; but she didn't know boiling water."

"What can I do to help you, Miss Redwood?" Matilda asked, suddenly
remembering the present.

"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 bi