Bless you, Jessie! I'm glad you've come. Step right in, Ephy. Them
muffins are so light they've nigh flown off the porch. Made with the
eggs my hen-chicken laid, comin' along from Boston. Smartest fowl in
the country, and only one I ever owned would brood and lay at the same
time. I wouldn't take a fortune for that bird."

Aunt Sally's own cheerfulness was fully restored. With her to be busy
helping somebody was, after all, her happiness. And she saw that she had
never come to Sobrante more opportunely.

"Your mother isn't up yet, dearie. And I've had the tackers out and
washed 'em good. Then I filled them with hot milk, and some of my
salt-risin' bread I fetched along in my box, and put 'em to bed. I
promised if they'd go to sleep again I'd make 'em each a saucer-pie,
and they went."

In spite of her heavy heart, Jessica laughed.

"Aunt Sally, I don't believe there's another person could make them
go to sleep at this time of day; not even my mother."

"Pooh! Her! Why, that little Edward knows he can twist her round his
thumb easy as scat. He's too much the look of his father for Gabriella
ever to be sot with him. You, now, you favor her folks."

Here, foreseeing that the talkative woman was off on a long track,
Ephraim mildly inquired:

"Aunt Sally, did you bring that rheumatism-oil you had last time you
were here?"

She put on her spectacles and looked at him over them, as was her habit.
Never, by any chance, had she been known to look through them, and her
explanation of wearing them at all was simply: "It's proper for a woman
of my age."

"Ephy, you feel real bright, don't you? You and rheumatism! Why, man,
you'll be getting married before you get rheumatic."

"Then I'll never need the oil."

She was not to be so easily worsted. If Ephraim was minded to be
facetious, she'd match him at the business. Whereupon, instead of
rehearsing the history of Gabriella's "folks" she veered round upon
disease and gave them details of all the dreadful things she had ever
heard till "Forty-niner" cried, "Quits! I'll not tackle you again."

Mrs. Benton's eyes twinkled over her cup, for she had joined them at
table. She knew, as he did, that this was but foolish sport, yet that it
had served their mutual purpose; which was to divert Jessica's thoughts
from trouble and her lips from asking why her mother did not appear.

But the meal over, the question came, and the answer was ready:

"Why, I just coaxed her to lie an