She led them into the darkened parlour, and sat down on the sofa between them, trying in a trembling voice to comfort them with religion and proverbs, inextricably mixed. But Frankie was not in any way to be quieted. She wept so violently, so passionately that the old lady could think of nothing better to do than to lead her upstairs and urge her to lie down. “There! There!” she murmured. “What can Grandma do for you?” She answered, in a muffled voice, her head buried in the pillows: “Please--let me alone ... a little while.” “I think we’d better,” whispered Minnie, and they went out, carefully closing the door upon Frankie’s weeping. The first glimpse of the farm had overwhelmed her completely. She remembered the college, august, beautiful, with the orderly and purposeful life that so appealed to her, she thought of her old home, as it would look now, in the late afternoon sunshine, of its dignity and freedom, the hope she had known there. And then this, this shabby, forlorn old house standing alone in a weed-grown straggling garden, surrounded by the neglected fields, which stretched away to the cold and unknown blue hills. All that she hated most, solitude, stagnation, neglect. V The old lady turned with relief to Minnie, who was so much more amenable. She led her down into the kitchen where she had been cooking her choicest dishes for the orphans, gave her milk to drink and fresh cake to eat, and watched her with melancholy in which there was considerable satisfaction. So absolutely what it should be was Minnie’s attitude. She was worn and tired, her eyes reddened with crying, all of which rendered so touching her pleasantness and politeness, her willingness to answer questions. A womanly little soul, altogether. The old lady fancied she saw in her the amiable and domestic creature desired by all old people, the consolation of her age; youth with none of youth’s disadvantages, the sedateness, the responsibility of maturity with the vigour and charm proper to her twenty years. She acclaimed Minnie a paragon, a Phœnix among maidens. Minnie herself began to feel comforted. The quiet kitchen in the last brightness of the Spring day, with the dinner pots and pans hissing on the stove and a pleasant fragrance of freshly baked bread and cake in the air, all the homeliness and friendly peace about her assuaged her grief, strengthened her soul. Her thoughts began to turn to the future--she tried to imagine a possible life there. “Do you still live here all alone, Grandma?” she asked. The old lady sighed. Poor creature! When she allowed herself to think of it, she wondered how she succeeded in living at all.