rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect.  I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail.  Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets.  Grand’ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves.  He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, “You are playing over your mother’s capers.”

“The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand’ther.  Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the Penny Magazine; it is full of themes.”

“She had better give you a gospel theme.”

He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about “thorns”; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding—­our invariable Saturday night’s repast.  Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound.  After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread.  Grand’ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie.  Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance.  What a disagreeable interest I felt in them!  What had they in common with me?  What could they enjoy?  How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were!  Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings.  Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room.  I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed.  I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants.  Had they been trampled upon?  A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands.

“Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?”

“No, indeed,” said Ruth, in a mild voice; “there’s no heft in them; they are mites to carry.”

“Besides,” chimed Sally, “you couldn’t be trusted with them.”

“Are they worth anything?” I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns.

“What made you pinch the moltee’s tail?” asked Sally.  “If you pinched my cat’s tail, I would give you a sound whipping.”

“How could she, Sally,” said Ruth, “when our cat’s tail is cut short off?”

“For all the world,” remarked Sally, “that’s the only way she can be managed.  If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise.”

“Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by,” modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a “cheese.”