, for no better reason than
that she was so fond of babies, and she kissed the baby ones and said,
"Oh, the loves, they are just sweet!" and she felt for them when Tommy
took a bite. She could go so quickly between the board and the girdle
that she was always at one end of the course or the other, but never
gave you time to say at which end, and on the limited space round the
fire she could balance such a number of bannocks that they were as much
a wonder as the Lord's prayer written on a sixpence. Such a vigilant eye
she kept on them, too, that they dared not fall. Yet she had never been
taught to bake; a good-natured neighbor had now and again allowed her to
look on.

Then her ironing! Even Aaron opened his mouth on this subject, Blinder
being his confidant. "I thought there was a smell o' burning," he said,
"and so I went butt the house; but man, as soon as my een lighted on her
I minded of my mother at the same job. The crittur was so busy with her
work that she looked as if, though the last trumpet had blawn, she would
just have cried, 'I canna come till my ironing's done!' Ay, I went ben
without a word."

But best of all was to see Grizel "redding up" on a Saturday afternoon.
Where were Tommy and Elspeth then? They were shut up in the coffin-bed
to be out of the way, and could scarce have told whether they fled
thither or were wrapped into it by her energetic arms. Even Aaron dared
not cross the floor until it was sanded. "I believe," he said, trying to
jest, "you would like to shut me up in the bed too!" "I should just love
it," she cried, eagerly; "will you go?" It is an inferior woman who has
a sense of humor when there is a besom in her hand.

Thus began great days to Grizel, "sweet" she called them, for she had
many of her mother's words, and a pretty way of emphasizing them with
her plain face that turned them all into superlatives. But though Tommy
and Elspeth were her friends now, her mouth shut obstinately the moment
they mentioned the Painted Lady; she regretted ever having given Tommy
her confidence on that subject, and was determined not to do so again.
He did not dare tell her that he had once been at the east window of her
home, but often he and Elspeth spoke to each other of that adventure,
and sometimes they woke in their garret bed thinking they heard the
horseman galloping by. Then they crept closer to each other, and
wondered whether Grizel was cosey in her bed or stalking an eerie figure
in