rs. Clemm rose, as they emerged from the door, and walked to the end of
the porch with them. There was something wonderfully pathetic in the
care-worn face, the reticent air, and gentle voice.

"I wonder if you have a few eggs to spare," she asked, in a hesitating
manner. "My poor Edgar's appetite is so wretched. He has had a bad
spell, and eats next to nothing."

"Yes, I can find you half-a-dozen, I know. Our hens are afflicted a
little with summer laziness," and Jennie smiled. "We have been baking
to-day, and I wish you would accept a loaf of bread. I'll send this
little cousin up with them."

"Oh, don't trouble! I will come down."

"I shall be glad to do it," said Hanny, with a gentle eagerness.

Cousin Jennie put the bread and the eggs,--she found seven,--and part of
a cake, in a little basket, and said, "Run along, Little Red Riding
Hood. There are no wolves to catch you."

They teased Cousin Jennie a little because the tall young man with
bright eyes was named Woolf.

Mrs. Clemm received the little girl's parcel with her usual quiet air,
and thanked her for coming. And before she could hunt up her ever-scanty
purse the child had said Good-evening, and vanished.

Hanny heard the "spells" rather rudely explained a day or two after, and
understood the melancholy shadow that hung about the house. People were
not any more delicate in gossiping about their neighbour's short-comings
then than now, when all the little faults and frailties of heroes are
paraded to the public gaze and comment.

But the exquisite care with which the mother watched over the son of her
heart, made her one of the little girl's heroines later on, when she
could fully appreciate the tender solicitude that tried to shield him
and save him from temptation, when possible, bearing her burthen with
such heroic dignity that she was fain to persuade her own soul that she
covered it from critical eyes. When one woman suffers bravely to the
death, amid untold privation, and another takes up the dropped burthen
with a devotion no anxiety can wear out, is it not proof that there must
have been some charm in the poet seen more clearly by those who loved
him?

There was a new book by Miss Macintosh among those they had brought
home; and this Hanny devoured eagerly, sitting on her high perch, while
the rest were busy in the household routine. In the afternoon, she read
aloud while the others sewed. Sometimes the Major came in to listen; but
he thou