go in now, in case it does come
on; but it is vexing. I did so want to finish this."

It was the last day of August, and the close of the holidays, and
Huldah had made up her mind to get the last of an order finished, and
ready to send away before she went back to school. She glanced down
hesitatingly at her unfinished work, and then at the gathering
blackness of the sky around her, a blackness which had a red-brown
angry glow underneath,--a glow which left no time for hesitation.

There was no doubt about it, she must go, and go quickly, or Aunt
Martha would be worrying. She glanced across at the cottage, and
there sure enough was Mrs. Perry standing waving her hand to call her
in.

Huldah sprang to her feet at once. "Run on, Dick, and tell her I'm
coming. Run home, that's a good dog!"

Dick started, hesitated, but at a sign from his mistress ran on
again. Huldah collected her work and rolled it all up in her
work-apron,--one with big pockets, which Miss Rose had made for
her,--but before she was ready a sharp bark from Dick made her wheel
round quickly. A strange, shabbily dressed woman was standing
talking to Mrs. Perry. She had come so silently, so unexpectedly
that Huldah had quite a shock, it seemed almost as though she had
sprung up out of the ground.

"Only someone begging, I suppose," she said to herself, but there was
a vague feeling of trouble at her heart that she could not account
for. The new-comer looked harmless enough, a poor, shabbily dressed
beggar-woman, thin, stooping, feeble-looking.

When Mrs. Perry raised her head and looked up over the field again,
Huldah saw that her face was white and frightened, and in sudden
alarm she took to her heels, and ran as fast as she could to the
gate.

At the click of the latch the new-comer turned and looked across the
road, and as she looked Huldah felt her head reel, and her heart
almost stop beating, for the tramp was Aunt Emma! Aunt Emma, come to
cross her path once more. Aunt Emma, shabbier and dirtier than ever,
and with a pinched, starved look, which showed that things had not
been going well with her.

When she caught sight of Huldah, her face lightened a little, and she
hurried across the road to meet her.

"I've come to know if you can help me," she began, in the same old
fretful, whining voice. "I know you don't want to see me again,
nobody does, but I'm starving. I've been starving mostly ever since
Tom was took away--"

"T