were they, Tilly?"

"Mrs. Barth, and Miss Van Dyke, and Miss Spenser--oh, there were
four!--and Ailie Swan."

"Do you want Ailie to help you?"

"No, Mr. Richmond; I don't want anybody but Norton."

"Well, I don't. You may tell them that we do not want anybody, Matilda.
I have seen Mrs. Pottenburg; she will come in to scrub floors and do
the hard work."

So for several weeks the two children and the minister kept house
together; in a way highly enjoyed by Matilda, and I think by Mr.
Richmond too. Even Norton found it oddly pleasant, and got very fond of
Mr. Richmond, who, he declared privately to Matilda, was a brick of the
right sort. All the while the poor Swiss people at Mrs. Laval's
farmhouse were struggling for life, and their two nurses led a weary,
lonely existence. Norton sometimes wished he and Matilda could get at
the gray ponies and have a good drive; but Matilda did not care about
it. She would rather not be seen out of doors. As the weeks went on,
she was greatly afraid that her aunt would come back and reclaim her.

And Mrs. Candy did come back; and meeting Mr. Richmond a day or two
after her return, she desired that he would send Matilda home to her.
She had just learned where she was, she said.

"You know that Matilda has been exposed to ship fever?" said Mr.
Richmond.

"No. I heard she was at your house."

"But not until she had been in the house with the fever patients, and
nursing them, before any one knew what was the matter. Had she not
better stay where she is, at least until we can be certain that she has
got no harm?"

"Well, perhaps," said Mrs. Candy, looking confused; "it is very
perplexing; I cannot expose my daughter----"

"She will stay where she is," said Mr. Richmond, "for the present. Good
morning."

He never told Matilda of this encounter. And before another week had
gone, Mrs. Candy and Clarissa had again left Shadywalk.

So week after week went by peacefully. The beautiful days of October
were all past; November winds came, and the trees were bare, and the
frosts at night began to be severe. The sick people were getting
better, and terrible qualms of fear and sorrow now and then swept over
Matilda's heart. Her aunt would surely want her back now, and she
should never finish her visit at Mrs. Laval's!

One day she was in Mr. Richmond's study, all alone, thinking so. There
was a flurry of snow in the air, the first snow of the season, falling
thickly on the grass, and