Page:Mistress Madcap (1937).pdf/18

 Mehitable shook her head. "It leads on to nothing," she said sagely. "And you know our mother said we were not to plan at all, with war upon us and provender growing so scarce. 'Tis now a problem to feed us," she said."

"This dreadful war!" exclaimed Charity. She dropped her sewing. "When, think you, 'twill end, Hitty?" she asked, clasping her hands.

"Indeed, I know not, Charity. No one does!" Again Mehitable shook her head gloomily. "Already it has been a weary twenty months since the British fired upon our men at Lexington."

"And almost seventeen months since we saw John!" murmured Charity. Both girls sighed at this, for their big, handsome brother's enlistment as a surgeon under General Washington had made a sorry change in their lives. No more were sly gifts of lollipops or bits of bright ribbon forthcoming from New York, where John Condit had been studying medicine up to the time of the war, with a certain famous surgeon, Doctor Carter.

"I think I be the one to miss John most," observed Mehitable, after a long silence. She glanced up at a silhouette hanging over the chimney shelf, and two bright tears shone for an instant in her black eyes.

"Nay, sister, I do!" protested Charity quickly.

"Do what?" asked a fresh voice, as the heavy outer door behind the girls was pushed open and a comely woman of forty-five entered. "Come, Hitty, help me close the door! It has commenced to pour, and ye gale be terrible!"