"Don't you now, cousin Seth?" said Fleda shaking away her tears and getting up.
"I ha'n't quite lost my recollection. Cousin, you must give me a kiss.--How do you do? You ha'n't forgot how to colour, I see, for all you've been so long among the pale city-folks."
"I haven't forgotten any thing, cousin Seth," said Fleda, blushing indeed but laughing and shaking his hand with as hearty good-will.
"I don't believe you have,--anything that is good," said he. "Where have you been all this while?"
"O part of the time in New York, and part of the time in Paris, and some other places."
"Well you ha'n't seen anything better than Queechy, or Queechy bread and butter, have you?"
"Come, you shall give me another kiss for that," said he, suiting the action to the word;--"and now sit down and eat as much bread and butter as you can. It's just as good as it used to be. Come mother!--I guess breakfast is ready by the looks of that coffee-pot."
"Ay indeed; it's a good half hour since it ought to ha' been ready. If it ain't I can't stop for it. Them boys will be running their furrows like sarpents 'f I ain't there to start them."
"Which like serpents," said Fleda,--"the furrows or the men?"
"Well, I was thinking of the furrows," said he glancing at her;--"I guess there ain't cunning enough in the others to trouble them. Come sit down, and let me see whether you have forgotten a Queechy appetite."
"I don't know," said Fleda doubtfully,--"they will expect me at home."
"I don't care who expects you--sit down! you ain't going to eat any bread and butter this morning but my mother's--you haven't got any like it at your house. Mother, give her a cup of coffee, will you, and set her to work."
Fleda was too willing to comply with the invitation, were it only for the charm of old times. She had not seen such a table for years, and little as the conventionalities of delicate taste were known there, it was not without a comeliness of its own in its air of wholesome abundance and the extreme purity of all its arrangements. If but a piece of cold pork were on aunt Miriam's table, it was served with a nicety that would not have offended the most fastidious; and amid irregularities that the fastidious would scorn, there was a sound excellence of material and preparation that they very often fail to know. Fleda made up her mind she would be wanted at home; all the rather perhaps for Hugh's mysterious "hush"; and there was something in the hearty kindness and truth of these friends that she felt particularly genial. And if there was a lack of silver at the board its place was more than filled with the pure gold of association. They sat down to table, but aunt Miriam's eyes devoured Fleda. Mr. Plum field set about his more material breakfast with all despatch.