“They do say that women folks have got no natural head for politics, but I always could seem to sense what was goin’ on in Washington, if there was any sense to it,” said grandmother Hender at last.

“Nobody could puzzle you at school, I remember,” answered Mr. Laneway, and they both laughed heartily.  “But surely this granddaughter does not make your household?  You have sons?”

“Two beside her father.  He died; but they’re both away, up toward Canada, buying cattle.  We are getting along considerable well these last few years, since they got a mite o’ capital together; but the old farm wasn’t really able to maintain us, with the heavy expenses that fell on us unexpected year by year.  I’ve seen a great sight of trouble, Joe.  My boy John, Marilla’s father, and his nice wife,—­I lost ’em both early, when Marilla was but a child.  John was the flower o’ my family.  He would have made a name for himself.  You would have taken to John.”

“I was sorry to hear of your loss,” said Mr. Laneway.  “He was a brave man.  I know what he did at Fredericksburg.  You remember that I lost my wife and my only son?”

There was a silence between the friends, who had no need for words now; they understood each other’s heart only too well.  Marilla, who sat near them, rose and went out of the room.

“Yes, yes, daughter,” said Mrs. Hender, calling her back, “we ought to be thinkin’ about supper.”

“I was going to light a little fire in the parlor,” explained Marilla, with a slight tone of rebuke in her clear girlish voice.

“Oh, no, you ain’t,—­not now, at least,” protested the elder woman decidedly.  “Now, Joseph, what should you like to have for supper?  I wish to my heart I had some fried turnovers, like those you used to come after when you was a boy.  I can make ’em just about the same as mother did.  I’ll be bound you’ve thought of some old-fashioned dish that you’d relish for your supper.”

“Rye drop-cakes, then, if they wouldn’t give you too much trouble,” answered the Honorable Joseph, with prompt seriousness, “and don’t forget some cheese.”  He looked up at his old playfellow as she stood beside him, eager with affectionate hospitality.

“You’ve no idea what a comfort Marilla’s been,” she stopped to whisper.  “Always took right hold and helped me when she was a baby.  She’s as good as made up already to me for my having no daughter.  I want you to get acquainted with Marilla.”

The granddaughter was still awed and anxious about the entertainment of so distinguished a guest when her grandmother appeared at last in the pantry.

“I ain’t goin’ to let you do no such a thing, darlin’,” said Abby Hender, when Marilla spoke of making something that she called “fairy gems” for tea, after a new and essentially feminine recipe.  “You just let me get supper to-night.  The Gen’ral has enough kickshaws to eat; he wants a good, hearty, old-fashioned supper,—­the same country cooking he remembers when he was a boy.  He went so far himself as to speak of rye drop-cakes, an’ there ain’t one in a hundred, nowadays, knows how to make the kind he means.  You go an’ lay the table just as we always have it, except you can get out them old big sprigged cups o’ my mother’s.  Don’t put on none o’ the parlor cluset things.”