He always looked as though he understood everything you meant, but did not know how to say. XIX. A MORNING WITH A SURPRISE. “Routine of duties, Commonplace cares.” —F. L. Hosmer. The years went on in quiet Bensalem and brought Judith to her eighteenth birthday; the summers and winters came and went, and the girl grew. The parsonage was “home,” and the farmhouse was “Aunt Affy’s,” as it had been ever since she could remember. One July morning, in this nineteenth year of Judith’s story, something besides the new morning was given to Marion. The parsonage under the housekeeping of the two, the woman and the girl, was a dainty, restful, and inspiring home to its three home-keepers, the minister, his sister, and Judith Mackenzie. The relationship among the three was as simple and natural as though Judith had been born one of the sisters in that old house, with the three windows in the roof that she had made a picture of for her mother. This July morning, an hour before dinner-time, Marion sat near the kitchen table shelling peas; she had sent Judith back to the story she was writing, and refused Roger’s help when he put his head in at the window to say that shelling peas always meant two people and a bit of confidence. “Miss Marion,” called a voice from the kitchen-porch; “I am not fit to come in, I’m just out of the hay field. I’ve got a letter for you that’s been laid over, and a burning shame it is; and it is the second time it has happened. To excuse himself he said your box was full and this slipped out or was set aside. I gave the Bensalem postmaster a round scolding, and told him the parsonage mail was always important, and if it happened again I’d go straight to Washington and report him to Uncle Sam,” chuckled the old man to whom a letter was about the smallest thing in life. “Uncle Cephas,” welcomed Marion, cordially, “thank you for the scolding and the letter.” “I mustn’t come in; I brought the minister a load of hay. Don’t call him, I’ll find him. Your letter looks rather foreign.” “Yes,” she said, trembling almost visibly after a glance at the post mark. “Double postage too,” he said curiously. “Yes,” she said again. “Judith had a foreign letter last night, too.” “Oh, yes, I see all her foreign letters,” she replied with an effort. “I must go; don’t work too hard. So you like to be your own mistress and your own maid; no help at all this summer?” “No; and once Judith and I did the washing; it was the best fun we ever had.” “Our folks say you think you own Judith; but I guess you have as good a right to her as anybody. You and her Cousin Don; you do the most for her.”