Mrs. Hollingford walking up and down the hall waiting
patiently for my appearance.

"What a great woman you have grown, my love!" she said, drawing my hand
within her arm, and leading me through the open hall door. "But you have
still your mother's fair hair and sunny eyes. Will you walk with me for
an hour? I have much to say to you, and the sooner it is said the
better."

Then she told me the story of her life, and misfortunes, sternly,
sweetly, with strange humility and fortitude. I knew much of it before,
but she would tell it all.

"And now, my love," she said, "you know us as we are. Your mother, when
she made me your guardian, did not foresee the changes that were to take
place. You have other friends who are willing to give you a home. You
have come here of your own will. When you wish to leave us we shall not
wonder."

I threw my arms round her neck and told her I would not leave her.
Never, since Miss Kitty Sweetman went to India, had my heart gone forth
so completely to anyone.

She bade me not be too hasty. "You will find our life so different from
anything you have ever known," she said. "We all fear it for you. We are
so busy here. We have always a purpose before our eyes to make us work."

"Then I shall work too," I said. "I will not be the only drone in such a
thrifty hive."

She smiled at this, and shook her head. But I immediately began to cast
about for the means by which I might find it possible to keep my word.

CHAPTER III.

I soon learned to love the farm. I began to know the meaning of the word
"home." The beauty and lovableness of some persons and places takes you
by surprise; with others they steal upon you by degrees; but there was
that about Hillsbro' Farm which I loved much at once and more
afterwards. Looking at it in the most commonplace way, it had all the
peace and plenty of an English farmhouse, while for eyes that sought
more they would find enough that was picturesque in the orchard's ruddy
thickets, where the sun struck fire on frosty mornings; in the wide
pasture lands sloping to the sedgy river, where the cows cooled their
feet on sultry evenings. You know as well as I the curious bowery garden
beyond the lower window of the parlour, stocked with riches and sweets
of all kinds, rows of bee-hives standing in the sun, roses and
raspberries growing side by side. The breaths of thyme and balm,
lavender and myrtle, were always in that parlour. You know the
sheep-fold