"There ain't anything for it but grin and bear it, Hepsy," he said.
"Though I don't see what business folks has marryin' an' dyin' an'
leavin' their children to poor folks to keep. It'll be a mighty
difference to expense havin' other two mouths to feed an' backs to
clothe."

"An' what I'm to make of two fine gentry children, as Hetty's are
sure to be, round all the time, I don't know," said Miss Hepsy,
whisking off a griddle cake with unnecessary vigour. "I declare Hetty
might have had more sense than think we could do with 'em. I'm rare
upset about it, I can tell ye."

"It doesn't say what she died o'," said Joshua meditatively, twirling
the letter in his brown fingers.

"Died o'?" repeated Miss Hepsy tartly. "Why, of pinin' arter that
husband o' her'n. What's her fine scholar done for her now, I wonder?
Left her a lone widder to die off and leave penniless children to
other folks to keep. But I'll warrant they'll work for their meat at
Thankful Rest. I'll have no stuck-up idle notions here."

"How am I to get to Newhaven jes' now, I'd like to know," said
Joshua, "and all that corn waitin' to be stacked? It's clean beyond
me."

Miss Hepsy thought a moment. "I have it. Miss Goldthwaite was here
to-day, an' she said the parson was goin' to Newhaven to-morrow to
stay a day or two. We'll get him to see to things an' bring the
children down. I'll go to Pendlepoint whenever I've got my supper,