ppetite,
as it's only two o'clock and she had her dinner at noon, but she'll go
back to her saucer, and it's off my mind. I could go down cellar now
and bring up the cookies and the pie and doughnuts for supper before I
start. Aunt Jane saw no objection; but we thought I'd better ask you so
as to run no risks."

Miranda Sawyer, who had been patiently waiting for the end of this
speech, laid down her knitting and raised her eyes with a half-resigned
expression that meant: Is there anything unusual in heaven or earth or
the waters under the earth that this child does not want to do? Will she
ever settle down to plain, comprehensible Sawyer ways, or will she to
the end make these sudden and radical propositions, suggesting at every
turn the irresponsible Randall ancestry?

"You know well enough, Rebecca, that I don't like you to be intimate
with Abner Simpson's young ones," she said decisively. "They ain't fit
company for anybody that's got Sawyer blood in their veins, if it's ever
so little. I don't know, I'm sure, how you're goin' to turn out! The
fish peddler seems to be your best friend, without it's Abijah Flagg
that you're everlastingly talkin' to lately. I should think you'd
rather read some improvin' book than to be chatterin' with Squire Bean's
chore-boy!"

"He isn't always going to be a chore-boy," explained Rebecca, "and
that's what we're considering. It's his career we talk about, and he
hasn't got any father or mother to advise him. Besides, Clara Belle kind
of belongs to the village now that she lives with Mrs. Fogg; and she
was always the best behaved of all the girls, either in school or
Sunday-school. Children can't help having fathers!"

"Everybody says Abner is turning over a new leaf, and if so, the
family'd ought to be encouraged every possible way," said Miss Jane,
entering the room with her mending basket in hand.

"If Abner Simpson is turnin' over a leaf, or anythin' else in creation,
it's only to see what's on the under side!" remarked Miss Miranda
promptly. "Don't talk to me about new leaves! You can't change that kind
of a man; he is what he is, and you can't make him no different!"

"The grace of God can do consid'rable," observed Jane piously.

"I ain't sayin' but it can if it sets out, but it has to begin early and
stay late on a man like Simpson."

"Now, Mirandy, Abner ain't more'n forty! I don't know what the average
age for repentance is in men-folks, but when you think of what an