woman, and some folks were scared of her; but I always got
along with her, and I wouldn't ask for no kinder friend nor neighbor.
I've had my troubles, and I've seen the day I was suffering poor, and I
couldn't have brought myself to ask town help nohow, but I wish ye'd ha'
heared her scold me when she found it out; and she come marching into my
kitchen one morning, like a grenadier, and says she, 'Why didn't you
send and tell me how sick and poor you are?' says she. And she said
she'd ha' been so glad to help me all along, but she thought I had
means,--everybody did; and I see the tears in her eyes, but she was
scolding me and speaking as if she was dreadful mad. She made me
comfortable, and she sent over one o' her maids to see to me, and got
the doctor, and a load o' stuff come up from the store, so I didn't have
to buy anything for a good many weeks. I got better and so's to work,
but she never'd let me say nothing about it. I had a good deal o'
trouble, and I thought I'd lost my health, but I hadn't, and that was
thirty or forty years ago. There never was nothing going on at the great
house that she didn't have me over, sewing or cleaning or company; and
I got so that I knew how she liked to have things done. I felt as if it
was my own sister, though I never had one, when I was going over to help
lay her out. She used to talk as free to me as she would to Miss Lorimer
or Miss Carew. I s'pose ye ain't seen nothing o' them yet? She was a
good Christian woman, Miss Katharine was. 'The memory of the just is
blessed'; that's what Mr. Lorimer said in his sermon the Sunday after
she died, and there wasn't a blood-relation there to hear it. I declare
it looked pitiful to see that pew empty that ought to ha' been the
mourners' pew. Your mother, Mis' Lancaster, had to go home Saturday,
your father was going away sudden to Washington, I've understood, and
she come back again the first of the week. There! it didn't make no sort
o' difference, p'r'aps nobody thought of it but me. There hadn't been
anybody in the pew more than a couple o' times since she used to sit
there herself, regular as Sunday come." And Mrs. Patton looked for a
minute as if she were going to cry, but she changed her mind upon second
thought.

"Your mother gave me most of Miss Katharine's clothes; this cap belonged
to her, that I've got on now; it's 'most wore out, but it does for
mornings."

"O," said Kate, "I have two new ones for you in one of my trunks