"That's one comfort. My face isn't freckled now, and my hair is more
becoming this way than in tight little pigtails, the way I used to
wear it."
Cousin Kate, coming up behind her, looked over her head and smiled at
the attractive reflection of Joyce's rosy cheeks and straightforward
gray eyes. Then she stopped suddenly and put her arms around her,
saying, "What's the matter, dear? You have been crying."
"Nothing," answered Joyce, but there was a quaver in her voice, and she
turned her head aside. Cousin Kate put her hand under the resolute
little chin, and tilted it until she could look into the eyes that
dropped under her gaze "You have been crying," she said again, this
time in English, "crying because you are homesick. I wonder if it would
not be a good occupation for you to open all the bundles that I got this
afternoon. There is a saucepan in one, and a big spoon in the other, and
all sorts of good things in the others, so that we can make some
molasses candy here in my room, over the open fire. While it cooks you
can curl up in the big armchair and listen to a fairy tale in the
firelight. Would you like that, little one?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Joyce, ecstatically. "That's what they are doing at
home this minute, I am sure. We always make candy every afternoon in the
winter time."
Presently the saucepan was sitting on the coals, and Joyce's little pug
nose was rapturously sniffing the odor of bubbling molasses.
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