Page:Orange Grove.djvu/321

 how to go to work. I didn't know whether the water ought to be hot or cold, and so I've only got so far.' What do you think she'd done? She'd mixed some meal just about right for a johnny cake and was goin' to put it into the water and let it dissolve, when she found out whether it ought to be cold or hot. That wan't what you was cryin' for was it?' says I. 'No,' says she, 'not exactly. I was puzzlin' over it and thinkin' What a bad day I've had of it tryin' to bake, when that old woman come in and begun her mission as Job's comforter by sayin' that this was nothin' to what I should have to meet with yet, and almost made me think I never should see another minute's happiness in the world.' I laughed outright, and says I, 'I guess you won't if you are goin' to give up so.

Milly's mind had been wandering among other scenes than the vexations of young house-keepers, and Kate soon left her to her own meditations, not receiving any reply to her running remarks. She had watched the gorgeous sunset until its flaming tints of crimson and gold contrasting with the clear azure of the vault above had kindled in her soul that intense rapture which so abstracts it from the common affairs of this work-day life as to turn to them again with reluctance. Willingly would she have become a disembodied spirit, to soar away among those heavenly regions where the miseries of this world could no longer pain the ear, and she might realize the ideal, whose fair proportions then rose before her mind's eye, not to be revealed in human language. Like the first rude sketch of the artist,