An' Joan sprung from her seat, kissed Mary, clasped Beaton to her breast, and wept aloud for joy. She then took from her cupboard a bottle of brandy and another of sweet-drink (mead), filled two rummers with a mixture of the strong and sweet, saying, "Here, dears, drink this, and help yourselves to more while I get something for 'e to eat before I hear another word." The old dame skipped about as if the sight of Beaton and her daughter had made her twenty years younger. In a few minutes An' Joan fried fish, boiled eggs, and placed on the board milk, cream, and butter, with bread and honey, apple pasties, a jug of beer, and more bottles of her choice cordials. When all three had done ample justice to the repast, Beaton, looking round the dwelling, said, "Now Aunt Joan, I am again at home and as happy as I can ever hope to be, but I always felt like one banished for all the years I dwelt in the land where Mary was born and bred. Everything here looks the same as long ago, when my delight was to run down for some of your choice fruit and sweet flowers, and to play with your turns till you learnt me to spin just as well as yourself." Seeing Mary's gaze fixed on the dresser, she continued, "You may well admire that, dear, and all its shelves contain; a dresser is the crowning glory of every Cornish cottage. You have never seen such quaint looking old jugs, ornamented with queer figures and wry faces, grinning amidst flowers and fruit, as those on the upper shelf; see on the next there are bright coloured glasses with long threaded or twisted stems, and scores of rare pretty things besides, brought from over sea or saved from wrecks; the dresser-bed is covered with a cloth as white as snow, and many ladies would covet the bowls and other vessels of old china that rest on it; and one might take the bright pewter flagons and platters for silver. A brass warming-pan, such as you see on the other side, is an article for ornament rather than use, but every couple here, however poor, think they must get one before they be married. And that shelf of wooden trenches, butter-prints, mustard-bowls, and other 'temberan things,' scoured with 'gard,' have a look of cleanliness not to be surpassed by more costly furniture." On the chimney-piece they might have noticed an hour-glass between tall brass candlesticks, branches of coral, sea-birds' eggs, sea-urchins, and foreign shells. Turning to An' Joan, Beaton remarked as if delighted, "there, too, beside the door is the same sweet-brier; rosemary, thyme, and other sweet flowers, blooming all over the garden; and the house swarming with bees, as of old, coming and going through the open window, and alighting on your cap as if to tell 'e they were going on well, and to see how you were looking." [114]