Scarcely had the door closed when Celie Armin ran to Philip and pulled him to the table.

In the tense half hour of Bram's watchfulness she had eaten her own breakfast as if nothing unusual had happened; now she insisted on adding potatoes and bannock to Philip's fish, and turned him a cup of coffee.
"Bless your heart, you don't want to see me beat out of a breakfast, do you ?" he smiled up at her, feeling all at once an immense desire to pull her head down to him and kiss her.

"But you don't understand the situation, little girl.

Now I've been eating this confounded bannock"-- he picked up a chunk of it to demonstrate his point--"morning, noon and night until the sight of it makes me almost cry for one of mother's green cucumber pickles.

I'm tired of it.