xt week. If I were, I
believe that I should take you with me. Good-by, dear old Betsey; you
make me feel as if I were a little girl again; you look just the
same."

For full five minutes the old woman stood out in the sunshine, dazed
with delight, and majestic with a sense of her own consequence. She
held something tight in her hand, without thinking what it might be;
but just as the friendly mistress of the poor-farm came out to hear
the news, she tucked the roll of money into the bosom of her brown
gingham dress. "'Twas my dear Mis' Katy Strafford," she turned to say
proudly. "She come way over from London; she's been sick; they thought
the voyage would do her good. She said most the first thing she had on
her mind was to come an' find me, and see how I was, an' if I was
comfortable; an' now she's goin' right back. She's got two splendid
houses; an' said how she wished I was there to look after things,--she
remembered I was always her gran'ma's right hand. Oh, it does so carry
me back, to see her! Seems if all the rest on 'em must be there
together to the old house. There, I must go right up an' tell Mis' Dow
an' Peggy."

"Dinner's all ready; I was just goin' to blow the horn for the
men-folks," said the keeper's wife. "They'll be right down. I expect
you've got along smart with them beans,--all three of you together;"
but Betsey's mind roved so high and so far at that moment that no
achievements of bean-picking could lure it back.

III.

The long table in the great kitchen soon gathered its company of waifs
and strays,--creatures of improvidence and misfortune, and the
irreparable victims of old age. The dinner was satisfactory, and there
was not much delay for conversation. Peggy Bond and Mrs. Dow and
Betsey Lane always sat together at one end, with an air of putting the
rest of the company below the salt. Betsey was still flushed with
excitement; in fact, she could not eat as much as usual, and she
looked up from time to time expectantly, as if she were likely to be
asked to speak of her guest; but everybody was hungry, and even Mrs.
Dow broke in upon some attempted confidences by asking inopportunely
for a second potato. There were nearly twenty at the table, counting
the keeper and his wife and two children, noisy little persons who had
come from school with the small flock belonging to the poor widow, who
sat just opposite our friends. She finished her dinner before any one
else, and pushed her chair bac