s, and a
great bush of southernwood; altogether, it was a front yard such as Miss
Jewett would like.

Hildegarde lifted the bright brass knocker,--she was so glad it was a
knocker, and not an odious gong bell; she _could_ not have liked a
house with a gong bell,--and rapped gently. The pause which followed was
not strictly necessary, for the Widow Brett had been reconnoitring every
movement of the new-comers through a crack in the window-blind, and was
now standing in the little entry, not two feet from the door. The good
woman counted twenty, which she thought would occupy just about the time
necessary to come from the kitchen, and then opened the door, with a
proper expression of polite surprise on her face.

"Good-day!" she said, with a rising inflection.

"How do you do?" replied Hildegarde, with a falling one. "Are you Mrs.
Brett, and are you expecting us?"

"My name is Brett," replied the tall, spare woman in the brown stuff
gown; "but I wasn't expectin' any one, as I know of. Pleased to see ye,
though! Step in, won't ye?"

"Oh!" cried Hildegarde, looking distressed. "Didn't you--haven't you had
a letter from Martha? She promised to write, and said she was sure you
would take us in for the night. I don't understand--"

"There!" cried Mrs. Brett. "Step right in now, do! and I'll tell you.
This way, if _you_ please!" and much flurried, she led the way into the
best room, and drew up the hair-cloth rocking-chair, in which our
heroine entombed herself. "I _do_ declare," the widow went on, "I ought
to be shook! There _was_ a letter come last night; and my spectacles was
broken, my dear, and I can't read Martha's small handwriting without
'em. I thought 't was just one of her letters, you know, telling how
they was getting on, and I'd wait till one of the neighbors came in to
read it to me. Well, there! and all the time she was telling me
something, was she? and who might you be, dear, that was thinking of
staying here?"

"I am Hilda Grahame!" said the girl, suppressing an inclination to cry,
as the thought of Rose's tired face came over her. "If you will find the
letter, Mrs. Brett, I will read it to you at once. It was to tell you
that I was coming, with my friend, who is in the carriage now, and her
young brother; and Martha thought there was no doubt about your taking
us in. Perhaps there is some other house--"

"No, there isn't," said the Widow Brett, quickly and kindly,--"not
another one. The idea! Of co