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The sun was already past noon, and the good woman dutifully rose and with instant consciousness of resource glanced in at the kitchen window to tell the time by a familiar mark on the floor. “I needn’t start just yet,” she muttered. “Oh my! how I do wish I could git in and poke round into every corner! ‘T would make this day just perfect.”

“There now!” she continued, “p’raps they leave the key just where our folks used to.” And in another minute the key lay in Mercy’s worn old hand. She gave a shrewd look along the road, opened the door, which creaked what may have been a hearty welcome, and stood inside the dear old kitchen. She had not been in the house alone since she left it, but now she was nobody’s guest. It was like some shell-fish finding its own old shell again and settling comfortably into the convolutions. Even we must not follow Mother Bascom about from the dark cellar to the hot little attic. She was not curious about the Browns’ worldly goods; indeed, she was nearly unconscious of anything but the comfort of going up and down the short flight of stairs and looking out of her own windows with nobody to watch.

“There’s the place where Tobias scratched the cupboard door with a nail. Didn’t I thrash him for it good?” she said once with a proud remembrance of the time when she was a lawgiver and proprietor and he dependent.

At length a creeping fear stole over her lest the family might return. She stopped one moment to look back into the little bedroom. “How good I did use to sleep here,” she said. “I worked as stout as I could the day through, and there wa’n’t no wakin’ up by two o’clock in the morning, and smellin’ for fire and harkin’ for thieves like I have to nowadays.”

Mercy stepped away down the long sloping field like a young woman. It was a long walk back to Tobias’s, even if one followed the pleasant footpaths across country. She was heavy-footed, but entirely light-hearted when she came safely in at the gate of the Bassett place. “I’ve done extra for me,” she said as she put away her old shawl and bonnet; “but I’m goin’ to git the best supper Tobias’s folks have eat for a year,” and so she did.

“I’ve be’n over to the old place to-day,” she announced bravely to her son, who had finished his work and his supper and was now tipped back in his wooden arm-chair against the wall.

“You ain’t, mother!” responded Tobias, with instant excitement. “Next fall, then, I won’t take no for an answer but what you’ll go to the fair and see what’s goin’. You ain’t footed it way over there?”

Mother Bascom nodded. “I have,” she answered solemnly, a minute later, as if the nod were not enough.

“T’bias, son,” she added, lowering her voice, “I ain’t one to give in my rights, but I was thinkin’ it all over about y’r Aunt Ruth Parlet”–

“Now if that ain’t curi’s!” exclaimed Tobias, bringing his chair down hastily upon all four legs. “I didn’t know just how you’d take it, mother, but I see Aunt Ruth to-day to the fair, and she made everything o’ me and wanted to know how you was, and she got me off from the rest, an’ says she: ‘I declare I should like to see your marm again. I wonder if she won’t agree to let bygones be bygones.'”

“My sakes!” said Mercy, who was startled by this news. “‘T is the hand o’ Providence! How did she look, son?”

“A sight older ‘n you look, but kind of natural too. One o’ her sons’ wives that she’s made her home with, has led her a dance, folks say.”

“Poor old creatur’! we’ll have her over here, if your folks don’t find fault. I’ve had her in my mind”–

Tobias’s folks, in the shape of his wife and little Johnny, appeared from the outer kitchen. “I haven’t had such a supper I don’t know when,” repeated the younger woman for at least the fifth time. “You must have been keepin’ busy all day, Mother Bascom.”

But Mother Bascom and Tobias looked at each other and laughed.

“I ain’t had such a good time I don’t know when, but my feet are all of a fidget now, and I’ve got to git to bed. I’ve be’n runnin’ away since you’ve be’n gone, Ann!” said the pleased old soul, and then went away, still laughing, to her own room. She was strangely excited and satisfied, as if she had at last paid a long-standing debt. She could trudge across pastures as well as anybody, and the old grudge was done with. Mercy hardly noticed how her fingers trembled as she unhooked the old gray gown. The odor of sweet fern shook out fresh and strong as she smoothed and laid it carefully over a chair. There was a little rent in the skirt, but she could mend it by daylight.

The great harvest moon was shining high in the sky, and she needed no other light in the bedroom. “I’ve be’n a smart woman to work in my day, and I’ve airnt a little pleasurin’,” said Mother Bascom sleepily to herself. “Poor Ruthy! so she looks old, does she? I’m goin’ to tell her right out, ‘t was I that spoke first to Tobias.”