Page:Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).djvu/260

242 Miranda; she 's just said it will take me my whole life to get the Randall out of me, and I 'm not convinced that I want it all out, so there we are!"

Aunt Jane, never demonstrative, cried with Rebecca as she attempted to soothe her.

"You must be patient," she said, wiping first her own eyes and then Rebecca's. "I have n't told you, for it is n't fair you should be troubled when you 're studying so hard, but your aunt Miranda is n't well. One Monday morning about a month ago, she had a kind of faint spell; it was n't bad, but the doctor is afraid it was a shock, and if so, it 's the beginning of the end. Seems to me she 's failing right along, and that 's what makes her so fretful and easy vexed. She has other troubles too, that you don't know anything about, and if you 're not kind to your aunt Miranda now, child, you 'll be dreadful sorry some time."

All the temper faded from Rebecca's face, and she stopped crying to say penitently, "Oh! the poor dear thing! I won't mind a bit what she says now. She 's just asked me for some milk toast and I was dreading to take it to her, but this will make everything different. Don't worry yet, aunt Jane, for perhaps it won't be as bad as you think."

So when she carried the toast to her aunt a little later, it was in the best gilt-edged china bowl, with a fringed napkin on the tray and a sprig of geranium lying across the salt cellar.