cely, just as Ben seized him by the collar and flung him into a
thicket of bushes, from where he presently crawled away out of sight,
occasionally pausing to shake his fist in their direction.

"A nice return for hospitality," exclaimed Billie.

"He's a dangerous fellow," said the doctor. "But I imagine he's mostly
talk. What do you know of him, Miss Phoebe?"

"I only know that years ago they tried to drive us away from our house.
But an old man who lived with us, protected us. He owned the cabin and
he left it to father and me. There was a will that made it ours. It
became a home." They smiled at her quaint expression. "And the Lupos
have been turned against us always, but God has protected us from our
enemies."

They looked at her silently. It was impossible not to feel deeply
impressed with the earnestness of her tone. Billie felt ashamed. With
all her advantages and the opportunities money and travel had brought
her, Phoebe, raised in a cabin on the mountain side, had learned
something she had not.

Presently she went over and sat beside the mysterious girl.

"I wish you would teach me a few things, Phoebe. I feel that I am very
ignorant."

"But I have never been to school," replied Phoebe in astonishment.

"There are some things one doesn't learn at school," answered Billie.

CHAPTER X.

ALBERDINA SCHOENBACHLER

"You no lig I shall dos clothes coog?" asked Alberdina, the Monday after
her arrival.

"Boil, you mean?" corrected Miss Campbell. "Certainly. There is a
clothes boiler, and goodness knows the things need it, and a good
bleaching afterwards in the sun. They are as yellow as gold."

When Alberdina, the new German-Swiss maid, had alighted from the train
with her absurd little iron-bound trunk, about as big as a bread basket,
Billie had felt no misgivings. Here, indeed, was a creature too healthy
to know the name of fear, and too good-natured to object to hard work.
The brilliant red cheeks and broad engaging smile immediately decided
Billie to put all her accumulated linen in wash at once.

On top of Alberdina's large peasant head was perched a small round hat,
positively the most ludicrous thing ever seen in the shape of millinery.
With its band of red satin ribbon and tiny bunch of field flowers, it
seemed to defy the world to find anything funnier.

"It's a real comedy hat," Dr. Hume observed. "The kind they wear when
they sing:

"'Hi-lee-hi-lo-hi-lee-hi-lo,
I joost co