Lucy smiled, her heart re-echoing her brother’s words.

“I have not felt so happy since mamma died,” she said softly.  “O Tom, is it not true what she used to say—­’That God gives us something to be grateful for everywhere’?”

“Yes,” said Tom soberly; and the next moment Aunt Hepsy’s tall figure appeared at the kitchen door, and her shrill voice broke the pleasant Sabbath calm.

“Here, come in, you two.  Air you going to stand there all night?  It’s ’most nine o’clock—­time you were in bed.  I guess you won’t go visitin’ on Sunday any more.”

VI.

Losing hold of the bridle.

It had rained all day, and not all that day only, but the best part of the one before.  Not a soft, gentle summer rain, but a fierce, wild storm, which beat the poor flowers to the earth, spoiled the fruit, and overflowed the river till half the meadow lay under water.  There was plenty of work in the barn for Uncle Josh and the men, and plenty in the house for Aunt Hepsy and the girls.  The scullery was full of wet clothes waiting on a dry day.  That of itself, not to speak of the damage to the orchard, was sufficient to make Aunt Hepsy a very disagreeable person to live with while the storm lasted.  Her tongue went from early morning till afternoon, scolding alternately at Lucy and Keziah.  The latter was a stolid being, on whom her mistress’s talking made no impression; but it made Lucy nervous and awkward, and her work was very badly done indeed.  At three o’clock Aunt Hepsy sent her to wash her face, and gave her a long side of a sheet to hem.  So Lucy was sitting on the settle, with a very grave and sorrowful-looking face, when Tom came in at four.  His uncle had no need of him just then, and had sent him to the house to be out of the way.  Keziah was feeding the calves, and Aunt Hepsy upstairs dressing, if that word can be appropriately applied to the slight change her toilet underwent in the afternoon.  Tom sat down at the table in the window, and leaning his arms upon it, looked out gloomily on the desolate garden, over which the chill, wet mist hung like a pall.  Neither spoke for several minutes.

“How do you get on now, Lucy?” asked Tom at length.  “How sober you look.  Has she been worrying you?”

“I daresay I am very stupid,” said Lucy low and quietly; “but when Aunt Hepsy talks so loud I don’t know what I am doing.”

Miss Hepsy entered at that moment, fortunately without having heard Lucy’s patient speech.  “Don’t lean your wet, dirty arms on the table, boy,” said she with a sharp glance at Tom.  “If you must be in, sit on your chair like a Christian.”

Tom immediately sat up like a poker.

“What’s yer uncle doin’?” was her next question.

“He’s oiling waggon wheels,” answered Tom, “and sent me in.”

Miss Hepsy took out a very ugly piece of knitting from the dresser-drawer, and sat down opposite Lucy.  “It’s a pity boys ain’t learned to sew and knit,” she said grimly.  “It would save a deal of women’s time doin’ it for ’em.  I think I’ll teach you, Tom.”