I'll just look in at Adam again, and see if he'll let me go on with the coffin." "Ha' a drop o' warm broth ?" said Lisbeth, whose motherly feeling now got the better of her "nattering" habit.

"I'll set two-three sticks a-light in a minute." "Nay, Mother, thank thee; thee't very good," said Seth, gratefully; and encouraged by this touch of tenderness, he went on: "Let me pray a bit with thee for Father, and Adam, and all of us--it'll comfort thee, happen, more than thee thinkst." "Well, I've nothin' to say again' it." Lisbeth, though disposed always to take the negative side in her conversations with Seth, had a vague sense that there was some comfort and safety in the fact of his piety, and that it somehow relieved her from the trouble of any spiritual transactions on her own behalf.
So the mother and son knelt down together, and Seth prayed for the poor wandering father and for those who were sorrowing for him at home.

And when he came to the petition that Adam might never be called to set up his tent in a far country, but that his mother might be cheered and comforted by his presence all the days of her pilgrimage, Lisbeth's ready tears flowed again, and she wept aloud.
When they rose from their knees, Seth went to Adam again and said, "Wilt only lie down for an hour or two, and let me go on the while ?" "No, Seth, no.

Make Mother go to bed, and go thyself." Meantime Lisbeth had dried her eyes, and now followed Seth, holding something in her hands.

It was the brown-and-yellow platter containing the baked potatoes with the gravy in them and bits of meat which she had cut and mixed among them.