emperance pledge (Martha had never tasted anything stronger than
shrub, and considered that rather a dangerous stimulant); and the
Deathbed of Lincoln, with a wooden Washington diving out of stony clouds
to receive the departing spirit.

"May we come in, Martha?" asked Hildegarde. "We have brought our work,
and we want to ask you about something."

"Come in, and welcome!" responded Martha. "Glad to see you,--if you can
make yourselves comfortable, that is. I'll get another chair from--"

"No, indeed, you will not!" said Hildegarde. "Rose shall sit in this
rocking-chair, and I will take the window-seat, which is better than
anything else; so, there we are, all settled! Now, Martha--" She
hesitated a moment, and Rose shrank back and made a little deprecatory
movement with her hand; but Hildegarde was not to be stopped. "Martha,
we have seen the house in the wood. We just happened on it by chance,
and we saw--we saw Cousin Wealthy go in. And we want to know if you can
tell us about it, or if Cousin Wealthy would not like us to be told. You
will know, of course."

She paused. A shadow had crossed Martha's cheerful, wise face; and she
sighed and stitched away in silence at her pillow-case for some minutes,
while the girls waited with outward patience. At last, "I don't know why
I shouldn't tell you, young ladies," she said slowly. "It's no harm,
and no secret; only, of course, you wouldn't speak of it to her, poor
dear!"

She was silent again, collecting her words; for she was slow of speech,
this good Martha. "That house," she said at last, "belongs to Miss Bond.
It was built just fifty years ago by the young man she was going to
marry." Hildegarde drew in her breath quickly, with a low cry of
surprise, but made no further interruption.

"He was a fine young gentleman, I've been told by all as had seen him;
tall and handsome, with a kind of foreign way with him, very taking. He
was brought up in France, and almost as soon as he came out here (his
people were from Castine, and had French blood) he met Miss Bond, and
they fell in love with each other at sight, as they say. She lived here
in this same house with her father (her mother was dead), and she was
as sweet as a June rose, and a picture to look at. Ah! dear me, dear me!
Poor lamb! I never saw her then. I was a baby, as you may say; leastwise
a child of three or four.

"Old Mary told me all about it when first I came,--old Mary was
housekeeper here forty years,