Sarah caught her breath in panic, then managed to say, “Yes, Aunt Pea. I mean to say—she will not.” Her answer was true as far as it went, but Sarah blushed, knowing she deceived the trusting old lady, who even now was so cheerfully beginning to eat her berries.

“Such a nice taste,” Penelope said. “A little sharp because it is still early for them, although the recent heat has brought them along quickly. Perhaps too quickly.”

Sarah spooned berries into her mouth and managed a vague “Mm” that could mean anything or nothing, without violating good manners by talking as she ate, nor the truth by making a direct statement, for in reality she tasted nothing, so preoccupied was she by the event she had so recently discovered.

“Poor Lauretta,” Penelope said charitably. “She loves a good dewberry as much as I do. Do your think she might try a bowl of them if Ricey carried them to her?”

“No! I know she would not, Aunt.”

“Is she so poorly? Ah—” On this comfortably plaintive note the old lady subsided, accepting with a nod Ricey’s offer of coffee from the large pot she had just brought in, and whose spout was steaming delectably. At that moment the door of the kitchen opened, and Clarice entered with a basket of freshly fried and sugared doughnuts nested in a crisp towel.

“Here!” Clarice triumphantly offered the basket to Penelope.

“Oh, Clarice!” She took a doughnut and bit into it. “You spoil us, you really do. God in Heaven cannot eat as well as we do.”

“Yes’m. You ready for one, Miss Sarah?”

“Thank you.”

“You may leave them,” Penelope said. “They are so very good! I declare I have tasted none better ever, no, not even of your own making!”

Clarice responded with a pleased gruffness. “Anybody want eggs? Grits? Sausage? Ham? Bacon?”

“Nothing! Delicious! Unless you, Sarah?”

“No, Aunt Pea. Thank you, Clarice.”

“I declare I think hot cinnamon must be my favorite flavor!” Penelope said.

“So is sage dressing with a fat baked hen!” Clarice rejoined, and chuckled to encourage good humor.

“You shame me! You make me appear greedy!” Penelope said in an unashamed and perfectly satisfied way. “Well, I am, I suppose, and I don’t mind admitting it.”

Uncle Joshua entered from the parlor, announcing his presence with a portentous and extended clearing of the throat. When this failed to get the attention of his mistress, who took a certain pleasure in teasing him, he said loudly and gravely, “Miss Penelope, I do not wish to interrupt your breakfast. However—”

“If you did not, you would not!” she responded gaily.

“Miss Pea!” the old man thundered in the way that had sometimes cowed her when she was a girl and he already a grown man, a man of dignity and consequence in her father’s household.

She allowed herself to appear a little cowed. “Yes, Uncle Joshua?”