Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/287

Rh Back in the kitchen at home Mrs. Bell was waiting for her husband to bring the horse to the door. She was a slight, dark-eyed little woman, with thin, vivid-red cheeks. From out of the swathings in which she had wrapped her bonnet, her face gleamed sad and troubled. Now and then she sighed heavily.

The cat came to her from under the stove, languidly stretching himself, and yawning until all the red cavern of his mouth and throat was revealed. At the moment he had an uncanny resemblance to Elder Joseph Blewett of White Sands — Roaring Joe, the irreverent boys called him — when he grew excited and shouted. Mrs. Bell saw it — and then reproached herself for the sacrilege.

“But it’s no wonder I’ve wicked thoughts,” she said, wearily. “I’m that worried I ain't rightly myself. If he would only tell me what the trouble is, maybe I could help him. At any rate, I’d know. It hurts me so to see him going about, day after day, with his head hanging and that look on his face, as if he had something fearful on his conscience — him that never harmed a living soul. And then the way he groans and mutters in his sleep! He has always lived a just, upright life. He hasn't no right to go on like this, disgracing his family.”

Mrs. Bell’s angry sob was cut short by the sleigh at the door. Her husband poked in his bushy, iron-gray head and said, “Now, mother.” He helped her