h ye! Haven't I me pastry
to make an' to-morrow Christmas? Go where ye've no thought, an' let the
spirit carry ye. Then there'll be rest. But be home by nightfall, mind."

"Cleena, you dear, the kindest, truest, best woman left in this world!"

"Indeed, that's sweet decent speech, me dear; but seein' your 'world's'
no bigger nor Ardsley township, I 'low I'll not be over set up by that
same. Run away, child, run away!"

"Cleena, you're watching down the road. Why? Why?--I demand; and you
talk of pastry, the which hasn't been in 'Charity House' since we came
to it, save and except that dried apple pie sent in by Mrs. Jones."

"Ugh!" cried Cleena, making a face of contempt. "The match o' that good
soul's pastry for hardness an' toughness isn't found this side of the
Red Sea."

"Cleena, is that old John coming here to-day? Is it _he_ you are
watching for?"

"Why for no? If a man's more nor his share an' nobody to cook it, why
shouldn't he be a bringin' it up an' lettin' a body fix it eatable?
Sure, it's John himself. Ye're too sharp in the wits, an' I don't mind
tellin' ye; it's all charity, Miss Amy. Him livin' by his lone an'
gettin' boardin'-house truck. If he says to me, says he, 'Shall I fetch
the furnishin' o' the best Christmas dinner ever cooked an' you be after
preparin' it,' says he, 'only givin' me one plateful beside your nice
kitchen fire,' says he, could I tell the man no, and me a good
Christian? Ye know better, Miss Amy. Think o' the master, an' Master
Hal, to-morrow comes. What's the good o' John, then, but to find food
for me folks? Run along!"

Mr. Kaye had already gone off for one of his long tramps, over the
fields and through the woods, to which he was now much given. He had
taken such, at first, to subdue the restlessness which followed upon his
wife's death, and as some sort of break in his unutterable loneliness.
But nature had helped him more than he had dreamed; and to the pure air,
the physical fatigue, and consequent sound sleep was due much of the
cure of his mental illness that all who knew him now noticed.

So there was nobody who needed Amy just then, and she set off from
"Charity House" at a brisk pace, resolved, as Cleena had advised, to
forget all worry and labor, and "just have one good, jolly time."

She took the road upward toward the woods behind Fairacres, meaning to
gather a bunch of late ferns for the decoration of the morrow's dinner
table, since Cleena promised it shoul