"Found her wandering in the snow," the reverend said, looking me over as if I was some rare duck.

"Where was Drucie?" gasped May.

"Nowhere to be seen, neither was the mother," said the reverend.

"Landsakes, keep her on the mat," Mrs. Ropson cried out, coming towards me holding out her hands, more to keep me at bay than to touch me. "Sidney, go on to your room, what with your bad cold. Quicka"first get her a chair, mercy on this day." She bobbed her head from the reverend to Sid as Sid dragged a padded chrome chair over from the table to where I was standing, and what with her arms flapping and the little sacs of fat jiggling around her mouth, I was back to thinking on the old harp seal, again.

"It's a sorry situation," Jimmy Randall said, pumping himself up and down on tiptoe as he noted the reverend doing the same.

"Sorry, indeed. I apologize for being late," the reverend said, turning to everyone and ushering them back towards the sitting room. "But it's a good thing I did decide to go out there and investigate before starting the meeting. Is there tea?" he asked, pausing as Mrs. Ropson prepared to follow behind him.

"Goodness mercy, I forgot to make tea," Mrs. Ropson said, twisting around and hurrying towards the cupboards. "Sidney, come help me make tea, although it's in bed you should be with that flu," she said, swinging open the cupboard doors and rattling the teacups in their saucers as she lifted them down.

"You'll stay with the girl till after the meeting," the reverend said to Sid as he moved to help his mother at the sink. Sid stopped with a half-nod, then turned to me as the reverend shut the door, and motioned for me to sit in the chair he had drawn over from the table. I sat and glued my eyes to the floor as he brought the kettle over to the sink and poured the tea while Mrs. Ropson made quick steps back and forth, back and forth from the pantry to the bin.

"Take a little drop of peppermint in your tea, Sidney," said Mrs. Ropson. "Landsakes, your father knows how bad your asthma gets, he shouldn't have sent you running around, gathering everyone together."

Tea sloshed into a cup, and a spoon clinked against its sides.

"Pour another cup, Mum," Sid urged quietly. There was a silence from Mrs. Ropson, and then more tea sloshing. Then Sid was standing before me, holding a cup of tea in front of my face, its cool, minty steam seeping up through my stuffed nostrils. I accepted, looking no further than the cup, my hands shaking from a cold no fire could warm.

"Here," Mrs. Ropson spoke at last, putting a piece of cake onto a plate and laying it on the chrome table for Sid. "Mind you eats it by yourself. I got to cut up what's left over and you knows it won't last long, for no sooner is a body in another's house than he's wanting something to eat, as if bread taste like tarts coming from someone else's pantry."

She lifted the tea tray off the bin, and whatever crossed her mind when she looked over at me holding onto the cup of tea never got said, for Sid was opening the sitting-room door for her, and with a last fretting look at him, she went inside.

Closing the door behind his mother, Sid looked at me and grinned. Then pressing his lips together as if he had finally found something to protest against, he sauntered straight-backed to the table and cut his piece of boiled cake in half. Placing the second piece on another plate, he brought it before me.

I shook my head.

"If you're worried about it being the lasta"don't," he said. "She always has more hidden in the pantry."

I accepted the plate.

"Are you afraid they're going to send you to the orphanage?" he asked, dragging another chair from the table over to the stove. He sat down and faced me, his plate balanced on one knee and his cup of tea on the other.

"You look scared," he said, after it become clear I wasn't going to speak.

I kept silent.

"Everybody's afraid of something," he went on, conversationally. "Most times, whatever they're afraid of never happens." He flicked a quick glance over the tail of my dirtied nightdress. "Do you think it might be better if they did send you to someplace else?"

It was a thought I couldn't even think on.

"My place is just fine," I burst out, close to tears.

He shrugged, eating his cake in silence as I fingered the crumbs around on my plate. The murmur of voices coming from the sitting room grew louder. Laying my cup on the plate with the half-eaten cake, I handed it to Sid with a small nod.

"Guess you're not hungry, heh?" he said, and was taking the dishes to the bin when a loud rap sounded on the door and Doctor Hodgins, wearing a tweed winter's coat and a derby, shouldered his way inside, bringing the cold of the evening in with hima"and Josie. She was wearing a dark blue coat that his wife used to wear to church, and her hair was tucked neatly beneath a black scarf. Spinning around in the centre of the kitchen, her eyes blazed with yellow as they fell on me.

I leaped to my feet with a cry at the sight of them, and shrank from the shocked look on Doctor Hodgins's face as he took in my dirtied state.

"Go home!" barked Josie, grasping at my arm and trying to hustle me past Doctor Hodgins towards the door.

"Just a minute, Josie," said Doctor Hodgins, raising a hand to stop her. He dropped to one knee to better examine me, and my mouth started to quiver at his show of kindness. "Hush now," he said, laying a hand on my shoulder. "Tell me what's happened."

"Nothin'," I managed to say, biting back the choked tears on account of Dead Sid watching on. "I got the flu. And I'd gone down the gully to check on a on her." I cast a miserable look at Josie, then back to Doctor Hodgins. "Then, the reverend came."

"Don't you worry," Doctor Hodgins said. "I'm back now, and everything's going to be fine." He cleansed the scowl off his face and mustered up a smile as the sitting-room door popped opened and Mrs. Ropson peered into the kitchen.

"Good evening, Flossie," he nodded politely, lifting his hat off his head. Mrs. Ropson turned to stone at the sight of Doctor Hodgins and Josie and then, clasping her hand to her mouth, bristled into the kitchen.

"Goodness, Doctor, you startled me, you did. When was it that you got back, then?"

"Just in time, apparently," Doctor Hodgins said, with another nod of acknowledgement as the reverend appeared in the doorway, a grim look on his face. "Josie was nearly froze to death, walking into Haire's Hollow to find Kit." He stopped and drew a concerned look over my bedraggled appearance. "Who isn't exactly dressed for visiting. May I ask what's going on?"

At this point May Eveleigh, Mr. and Mrs. Haynes and Jimmy Randall were all crowding back into the kitchen, and Doctor Hodgins, his dark eyes graven beneath his furrowed brow, nodded in turn to each of them.

"First, may I enquire after Elsie's health?" asked the reverend sombrely as everyone fell silent upon entering the room, and found places to stand alongside the wall.

Doctor Hodgins, still holding his derby, clasped his hands behind him and bowed his head.

"Elsie a has passed away."

"God bless her," said Mrs. Ropson woodenly in the silence that fell. Then grew a mingle of murmurs and everyone stood awkwardly between reaching out and touching Doctor Hodgins sympathetically and keeping to their spots.

"It was an easy passing," Doctor Hodgins added slowly. "She's resting in St. John's, next to her mother and father, where she wanted to be. She sends back a fond farewell to all of her friends here." He sent a solemn look around the room that ended with a gentle smile at me, and never in my life had the sight of someone looked so dear.

The reverend gave a little cough and spoke equally as solemnly.

"Her suffering was long. Pray she finds release in God's hands. This Sunday, we'll have a memorial service so's her many friends here can say their final farewell."

"If there's anything we can do a " May Eveleigh murmured.

"Pray give the reverend your coat and go sit in the sitting room, I makes you a cup of tea," said Mrs. Ropson, taking another cup down from the cupboard. "Indeed, it's a sad time for all of us; she was a dear, gentle woman."

"A good woman indeed, sir," Jimmy Randall said deeply, nodding to Mr. and Mrs. Haynes as if it was to them that he was making the declaration. They murmured back in agreement and everyone looked towards Doctor Hodgins and fell silent again.

"Your kindness has long been felt," Doctor Hodgins said, accepting a cup of tea from Mrs. Ropson and raising it in salute. "However, it's Kit and Josie who need your kindness right now. What say we finish up this business that has brought everyone together this afternoon."

"Indeed we shall," the reverend said hastily, motioning everyone back into the sitting room. Mrs. Ropson followed, asking after everyone's tea and offering to bring in some sweet biscuits, if anybody wanted some, and the reverend followed behind her. Doctor Hodgins gave a last, reassuring look towards Josie and me before the reverend closed the door behind them.

Sid and I stood looking at each other, then at Josie, who had fallen quiet upon everyone's presence in the room and was now staring curiously around the kitchen. With her gloved hands resting on the edges of her pockets and her head tilted just so against the brown, curly fur on the collar of her new coat, she looked as if she could have been anybody.

"Take a seat, Josie," Sid said, holding out the chair he had been sitting on.

She sat down, eyeing Sid with the same intrigue she had just given his mother's shiny chrome table as he crossed the kitchen in two swift strides, then was back, offering her a piece of boiled cake on a plate. She accepted his offer, then watched as he beckoned me to follow him down the darkened hallway. I hesitated for a second, then looking at Josie with a finger to my lips for quiet, followed after Sid. The voices from the sitting room grew louder as we come before a French glass door, its windows covered with a white sheer curtain. I crept closer and peered through. The men were all standing around the women, who were sitting on a divan, except for Mrs. Ropson, who was sitting in a plump, overstuffed armchair with a crocheted shawl covering its back. She pulled the shawl down around her shoulders as we watched, her eyes fastened on the reverend, who was busy talking to the room at large, his gesticulating hands expanding on his thin, whispery voice.

"It wasn't a healthy picture I saw when I went out there, Doctor, despite all you've done for the family. There was no fire lit, and the girl was outdoors in her pyjamas, loaded down with the flu. She looked as if she was half-frozen."

"Landsakes, the state of her when the reverend brought her in," Mrs. Ropson joined in, her lips quivering excitedly as she looked from one to the other. "Throwing up in the car, and her lips blue with cold. It's scandalous. It was good of you to try and help, Doctor, but we all had our concerns about Drucie taking on such a load. And now it's come to this."

The reverend give a sharp cough and brought everyone's attention back to him.

"My wife and I aren't the only ones with concerns for the girl," he said, looking at Mr. Haynes expectantly.

Mr. Haynes cleared his throat and strolled to the front of the room, his hands deep in his pockets, and his nose a pinkish hue.

"I do have concerns," he said, looking from Doctor Hodgins to the reverend. "Kit's been missing a fair bit of school. Plus her clothes don't look cleaned most days, and her hair is never combed. And there are other things." He tipped back on his heels and glanced around at the others the way he often did in school when he was about to start up a lesson. "She don't get along well with others. Sits by herself all the time." He shrugged. "Of course, the others make fun of her, especially when the mother is a about."

"Well," May said in the silence that followed, "I don't know about everything else, but I knows there's not much flour and yeast being bought. I wonder what they're eatin' without bread. And there's a bill growing a "

"Drucie never was that tractable," Jimmy Randall spoke up, fingering his chewed-off ear. "And even if she was, I can't imagine anyone, not even Josie Pitman, wantin' to eat her bread, what with her droolin' into it the way she does." He ended off with a satisfied look at the reverend, and shifted uncomfortably with the quiet that greeted his say. Then all hands turned to Mrs. Haynes, who had yet to speak. She raised her eyes from studying the rings on her fingers and shrank back a little from the encountered stares. Swallowing with great difficulty, she looked to Mr. Haynes and spoke quietly.

"The girl shouldn't have to suffer."

"There you have it, Doctor," the reverend spoke, as if all of what had been said was purely for Doctor Hodgins's benefit. "Short of being taken in, there's not much else can be done for Kit and Josie, and I can't imagine who, as kind as the people are in Haire's Hollow, would be willing to take in a full-grown woman and her girl; especially with the problems the mother herself presents. And, as was made clear when the girl was first born, it's not proper to separate the two, especially now as they've been together for this long. I feel there's but one proper alternative that would be suiting to them both, and that's the Sisters of All Mercy in St. John's. I have a friend there, the Reverend Saunders, that would pay special attention to their care." The Reverend Ropson paused, looking more grimly at Doctor Hodgins. "As attached as you are to the family, Doctor, it wouldn't be fair to keep them in their dire circumstances any longer."

Doctor Hodgins listened quietly while they spoke, a sad little smile turning up the corners of his mouth, one that appeared to be more for them, rather than for the sad picture they were painting of me and Josie.

"How's Kit's grades?" he asked, turning to Mr. Haynes.

"She's always managed to maintain good grades, Doctor," said Mr. Haynes.

"How good?" asked Doctor Hodgins.

Mr. Haynes shrugged.

"Very good."

"An A student?" persisted Doctor Hodgins.

Mr. Haynes nodded.

"She could go far if she had the chance," he added.

"Any disciplinary problems these days?"

"Not a disorderly, certainly."

"Must make it easier for you, not having to reach for the strap as often," Doctor Hodgins said evenly.

Mr. Haynes shoved his hands back in his pocket and looked over to May Eveleigh, seemingly anxious to escape Doctor Hodgins's attention.

"It's a long ways she has to walk to school. I don't suppose the wind might have something to do with her unkempt appearance?" Doctor Hodgins asked of no one in particular while circling around to where May Eveleigh was perched on the edge of the divan. Laying a hand on her shoulder, and in a suddenly softened tone that alarmed me by its trembling, he went on to say, "It's good of you to allow for the bill, May. There would be many pots without a pudding if not for your charity over at the store. I think everyone here would agree with that."

May nodded primly.

"I do's my best, although it's not always easy, especially now in the wintertime with no fish being sold and everything on credit."

"And there's those that never pays," Jimmy Randall burst out with a surly shake of his head. "You be an angel to keep 'em on, May."

"It's God's work, for sure," Mrs. Ropson said, throwing back the shawl and rising from her seat. "Would you like some more tea, May? How about you, Jimmy?"

"As I was saying," the reverend said, rubbing his clasped hands together as if they were cold. "It'll be a relief for the girl to have her mother taken care of. I've arranged it so's they can both stay in the same room."

"Did you ask her if she was cold?" Doctor Hodgins asked, smiling his thank-you as Mrs. Ropson refilled his cup.

The reverend raised his brow.

"Pardon me?"

"Your concern is that Kit was freezing to death," Doctor Hodgins said. "She's going on fourteen; they're as young as that bearing babies along the shore. Don't you think Kit's old enough to figure out if she's cold or not, and to put on extra clothes if she was?"

The reverend sighed.

"You saw her out there, Doctor. She was outdoors in a ragged nightdress."

"Her grandmother's flannelette nightdress, what Kit always wears when she's missing Lizzy. Is there none of us here who don't understand the peculiarities of grief?" Doctor Hodgins tiredly circled the room. "Perhaps things did get a little out of hand the past couple of days, what with Drucie, Kit and her mother all coming down with the flu, the same flu that's knocked out most of Haire's Hollow, so's I've been told. And isn't what's happening here today a just enough reason as to why Kit wouldn't approach any of you for help with chopping a little firewood?" He ended his say with his eyes on May, who hung her head the way Josie did once, when Nan caught her stealing the hard green candies out of her apron pocket.

"Mercy, Doctor," Mrs. Ropson said, laying down the tea pot none too gently. "You can see for yourself the condition of the girl."

"Ita"it's her mother's runnin' around the way she does, too," Jimmy Randall protested. "It's not a thing for a young girl to be growin' up with."

Doctor Hodgins held up his hand like one who has had enough of a bad tonic.

"Josie Pitman does in public what every man here has done in the privacy of his thoughts and elsewhere. Come, come now, May," he added at her shocked gasp, "there's none of us lily white, and in your business you would know that. Do we take it upon ourselves to judge and punish our neighbours when our own slates are just as smeared?"

"I'm for doin' what's right," May said. "And leavin' a girl to care for her retarded mother don't seem to me to be right."

"And it's right you are to be concerned," Doctor Hodgins agreed. "We all know Josie's limitations, it's her strengths that we don't know. Kit and her mother should be given a chance to take care of each other, providing we, as a community, help from the outside. Drucie might not be the best housekeeper that ever was, but she's the closest thing to family that Kit has. Another year and she won't be needing anybody to see over her. She's strong, is Kit, and more grown up then her size would have you believe."

The reverend took a step closer to Doctor Hodgins and spoke with an angry snort.

"Is the state of her sitting out there an indication of how well she takes care of herself?"

Doctor Hodgins turned on the reverend like a coiled spring ready to snap.

"It's how you would have her, reverend!" he said in a half-whisper.

A silence fell as both men stared at each other, then, "How can we make it better?"

It was Mrs. Haynes that spoke. And what with her hardly ever speaking, it was enough to bring everyone's attention away from the strained air between the doctor and the reverend and focus on her.

"I a could bake bread for them," she offered, her eyes shifting from her husband's, and her voice fading fainter with each spoken word.

It was as if the sun rose on Doctor Hodgins's face.

"God bless you," he said deeply, grasping both her hands off her lap and shaking them. "It's in the hearts of people like you where miracles are born, and where would we be without miracles? For Kit and Josie aren't the only two orphans Haire's Hollow has inherited. With Elsie gone, I'm as needy as they are for a pair of worsted socks and a loaf of baked bread."