"I love it! Bramble jelly and seed cake! What do you think, Aunt? When
I get very old and die, Mrs. Mactavish and Jock's wife will be in heaven
already, brought for the purpose by the Angel Gabriel, and they'll make
bramble jelly and seed cake for the love feast for me!" she said, eating
a spoonful without spreading it on oatcake, encouraged by her aunt's
unwonted extravagance. "I can't be philosophical about bramble jelly!"
Aunt Janet watched the girl as though she could not believe in anything
so sincere as this love of sweet things. Then she said a little sadly:
"There's not a thing on earth that I want or love."
"Because you've ruled yourself out of everything! I love to want things
because always they may be just round the corner. And if they aren't,
there's the fun of thinking they are. And always there's another corner
after the last one. I'd rather _die_ of hungriness than never be
hungry."
"Oh, you'll die of hungriness, I expect. That is, if you're lucky," said
Aunt Janet. "I shall just drop out of life some day."
Suddenly time gave a sharp leap forward and Marcella saw herself sitting
there as Aunt Janet was sitting, a dead soul in a dulled body, waiting
to drop out of life. The words of Wullie and the gipsy slid into her
mind--"they go on strange roads"--and she got a swift vision of herself
in armour riding out gaily along a strange road with her knight beside
her.
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