urse I'll take you in, child, and glad
enough of the chance. And you Miss Hildy Grahame, too, that Marthy has
told me so much about! Why, I'm right glad to see ye, right glad!" She
took Hildegarde's hand, and moved it up and down as if it were a
pump-handle, her homely face shining with a cordiality which was
evidently genuine. "Only,"--and here her face clouded again,--"only if
I'd ha' known, I should have had everything ready, and have done some
cleaning, and cooked up a few things. You'll have to take me just as I
am, I expect! However--"

"Oh, we _like_ things just as they are!" cried Hildegarde, in delight.
"You must not make any difference at all for us, Mrs. Brett! We shall
not like it if you do. May I bring my friend in now?"

"Well, I should say so!" cried the good woman. "She's out in the
carriage, you say? I'll go right out and fetch her in."

Rose was warmly welcomed, and brought into the house; while Hilda
fastened Dr. Abernethy to the gate-post, and got the shawls and
hand-bags out from under the seat.

"I expect you'd like to go right upstairs and lay off your things!" was
Mrs. Brett's next remark. "I declare! I do wish 't I'd known! I swep'
the spare chamber yesterday, but I hadn't any _i_dea of its being used.
Well, there! you'll have to take me as I am." She bustled upstairs
before the girls, talking all the way. "I try to keep the house clean,
but I don't often have comp'ny, and the dust doos gather so, this dry
weather, and not keeping any help, you see--well, there! this is the
best I've got, and maybe it'll do to sleep in."

She threw open, with mingled pride and nervousness, the door of a
pleasant, sunny room, rather bare, but in exquisite order. The rag
carpet was brilliant with scarlet, blue, and green; the furniture showed
no smallest speck of dust; the bed looked like a snowdrift.
Nevertheless, the good hostess went peering about, wiping the chairs
with her apron, and repeating, "The dust _doos_ gather so! I wouldn't
set down, if I was you, till I've got the chairs done off!"

"Why, Mrs. Brett," cried Hildegarde, laughing merrily, "it is the chairs
you should be anxious for, not ourselves. We are simply _covered_ with
dust, from head to foot. I think it must be an inch deep on my hat!" she
continued, taking off her round "sailor" and looking at it with
pretended alarm. "I don't dare to put it down in this clean room."

"Oh, _that_'s all right!" cried the widow, beaming. "Land sakes! I d