akably that she should not be given the larger portion of food.
Her rheumatism was severer than her husband's, and it seemed to her that
this alone should have entitled her to the greater share of attention.
There was a fierce contempt in her manner when she alluded to his age
or to his infirmities, for although he was three years her elder, he was
still chirpy and cheerful, with many summers, as she said resentfully,
left in him yet.

"Breakfast is ready, grannies," remarked Sarah, who had allowed her
coffee to grow cold while she looked after the others; "are you ready to
eat?"

Grandmother's sly little eyes slanted over her hooked nose in the
direction of the two bowls which her daughter-in-law was about to
sprinkle with sugar. An idea entered her old head which made her chuckle
with pleasure, and when her mush had been covered, she croaked out
suddenly that she would take her breakfast unsweetened. "I'm too bad to
take sugar--give that to him--he has a stomach to stand it," she said.
Though her mouth watered for sweets, by this trick she had outwitted
grandfather, and she felt that it was better than sugar.

The kitchen was a large, comfortable room, with strings of red peppers
hanging from the ceiling, and boards of sliced apples drying on upturned
flour barrels near the door. The bright homespun carpet left a strip of
bare plank by the stove, and on this stood two hampers of black walnuts
ready for storing. A few coloured prints, culled from garden magazines,
were tacked on the wall, and these, without exception, represented
blossoms of a miraculous splendour and size. In Sarah's straitened
and intolerant soul a single passion had budded and expanded into
fulfillment. Stern to all mortal things, to flowers alone she softened
and grew gentle. From the front steps to the back, the kitchen
was filled with them. Boxes, upturned flour barrels, corners of
china-shelves and window-sills, showed bowers of luxuriant leaf and
blossom. Her calla lilies had long been famous in the county; they
had taken first prizes at innumerable fairs, and whenever there was a
wedding or a funeral in the neighbourhood, the tall green stalks were
clipped bare of bloom. Many were the dead hands that had been laid in
the earth clasping her lilies. This thought had been for years the chief
solace in her life, and she was accustomed to refer to it in the heat
of religious debates, as though it offered infallible proof of her
contention. After