“Get water, or get snow,” I said; “don’t you know what fainting is, you very stupid child?”

“Never heerd on it, in Cornwall,” she answered, trusting still to the bread; “be un the same as bleeding?”

“It will be directly, if you go on squeezing away with that crust so.  Eat a piece:  I have got some more.  Leave my darling now to me.”

Hearing that I had some more, the starving girl could resist no longer, but tore it in two, and had swallowed half before I had coaxed my Lorna back to sense, and hope, and joy, and love.

“I never expected to see you again.  I had made up my mind to die, John; and to die without your knowing it.”

As I repelled this fearful thought in a manner highly fortifying, the tender hue flowed back again into her famished cheeks and lips, and a softer brilliance glistened from the depth of her dark eyes.  She gave me one little shrunken hand, and I could not help a tear for it.

“After all, Mistress Lorna,” I said, pretending to be gay, for a smile might do her good; “you do not love me as Gwenny does; for she even wanted to eat me.”

“And shall, afore I have done, young man,” Gwenny answered laughing; “you come in here with they red chakes, and make us think o’ sirloin.”

“Eat up your bit of brown bread, Gwenny.  It is not good enough for your mistress.  Bless her heart, I have something here such as she never tasted the like of, being in such appetite.  Look here, Lorna; smell it first.  I have had it ever since Twelfth Day, and kept it all the time for you.  Annie made it.  That is enough to warrant it good cooking.”

And then I showed my great mince-pie in a bag of tissue paper, and I told them how the mince-meat was made of golden pippins finely shred, with the undercut of the sirloin, and spice and fruit accordingly and far beyond my knowledge.  But Lorna would not touch a morsel until she had thanked God for it, and given me the kindest kiss, and put a piece in Gwenny’s mouth.

I have eaten many things myself, with very great enjoyment, and keen perception of their merits, and some thanks to God for them.  But I never did enjoy a thing, that had found its way between my own lips, half, or even a quarter as much as I now enjoyed beholding Lorna, sitting proudly upwards (to show that she was faint no more) entering into that mince-pie, and moving all her pearls of teeth (inside her little mouth-place) exactly as I told her.  For I was afraid lest she should be too fast in going through it, and cause herself more damage so, than she got of nourishment.  But I had no need to fear at all, and Lorna could not help laughing at me for thinking that she had no self-control.

Some creatures require a deal of food (I myself among the number), and some can do with a very little; making, no doubt, the best of it.  And I have often noticed that the plumpest and most perfect women never eat so hard and fast as the skinny and three-cornered ones.  These last be often ashamed of it, and eat most when the men be absent.  Hence it came to pass that Lorna, being the loveliest of all maidens, had as much as she could do to finish her own half of pie; whereas Gwenny Carfax (though generous more than greedy), ate up hers without winking, after finishing the brown loaf; and then I begged to know the meaning of this state of things.