" asked astonished Bertha.

Avice shook her head. "I cannot explain it; I can only tell what
happened. She was always very tender-hearted; she never could bear to
see any quarrelling, or cruelty, or injustice. If two of the children
strove together, our little Lady would run to them with a face of deep
distress, and take a hand of each and draw them together, as though she
were begging them to be friends; and if she could not get them to kiss
each other, she would kiss first one and then the other. I missed her
one day, and, after hunting a long while, I found her in the gallery
before a fresco of our Lord upon the Cross. She was stroking it and
kissing it, with tears in her eyes; and she turned to me saying, `Poor!
poor!' Her eyes always filled with tears when she saw the crucifix.
The moon used to interest her exceedingly; she would sit and watch it,
and kiss her hand to it. But, dear me! how the time must be getting on!
Jump up, Bertha, and prepare supper."

Bertha folded up her work and put it aside. She drew one of the high
stools between her aunt and herself, and put out upon it the two wooden
trenchers and two tin mugs. Going to a corner cupboard, Bertha brought
out a few cakes of black bread, which she set on a smaller stool beside
the other; and then, lifting a pan upon the fire, she threw into it some
pieces of mutton fat. As soon as these were melted, Bertha broke four
eggs into them, stirring this indigestible mixture with a wooden
thible--an article of which my northern readers will not require a
description, but the southern must be told that it is a long flat
instrument with which porridge is stirred. For the eggs were not merely
fried in the fat, but were beaten up with it, the dish when finished
bearing the name of franche-mule. A sprig or two of dried herbs were
then shred into the pan, and the whole poured out, half on each of the
trenchers. It is more than possible that the extraordinarily rich,
incongruous, indigestible dishes wherein our fathers delighted, may have
something to do with the weaker digestions of their children. The tin
mugs were filled with weak ale from a barrel which stood under the
ladder. It was an oddity at that time to drink water.

When supper was finished, Bertha washed the mugs and scraped the
trenchers clean (water never touched those), putting them back in their
places. She had scarcely ended when a tap was heard at the door.

"Step in, Hildith," said Be