"No," answered Meg softly, "that's why----"
"Yes," interrupted the woman. "_You_ say I've got a burden, but you say there's the Lord as can lighten it, and I shan't forgit. For one thing, I can see as you let Him carry _yours_."
She turned abruptly and left the room, and Meg's eyes filled with tears to think how little, after all, she loved and trusted that dear Lord who loved her and gave Himself for her.
The next time Meg set about making some bread, she told Jem to stop at their neighbour's door, and tell her to come up as soon as she could.
Accordingly Mrs. Blunt soon appeared, carrying her baby in her arms, a roll of mending in one hand and her toddling child in the other.
"Here you are!" she said. "I am so glad you came early, because the earlier I get to it the better. I often make it before breakfast."
"Yes, it is such a good little stove. I'm so glad it is not a kitchener, because they burn so much, whether you want it or not."
"I could never bake enough in my oven to make it worth while," said Mrs. Blunt.
"I've been thinking of that," answered Meg, "and my husband says that the baker would bake it for you, he thinks, for nothing, if you made the arrangement to buy your flour there. You could make inquiries. Jem says he knew one woman who did regularly."
"I should want some large tins," said Mrs. Blunt.
"I dare say you could pick some up cheap somewhere," said Meg; "but anyway in a week you would save the price of a large tin."
"Yes; Jem has been reckoning it up, and he says you would save eighteenpence or two shillings a week."
"I should like to save that," exclaimed Mrs. Blunt; "it would buy us a deal of things we have to do without now."
"That it would," said Meg, busily pouring her flour into the pan, and measuring some crushed salt into it. "See, Mrs. Blunt, to my five pounds of flour I put five half teaspoonfuls of salt and five half-pints of lukewarm water. It is very simple."
"But you haven't put the water in yet," said Mrs. Blunt.
"No, because part of that has to melt my yeast. Here it is, feel it--just as warm as new milk. There! now I pour this on the yeast and mix it well; now I make a hole in my flour and pour in my yeast and the rest of my water, and stir it round--so--round and round till it is as thick as a batter and as smooth."