ght shone cheerily on the yellow
painted walls, the shining floor, the gleaming brass, copper, and china.
It lighted up the red curtains and made a halo round good Nurse Lucy's
head as she bent over her sewing; it played on the farmer's silver-bowed
spectacles as he pored with knitted brows and earnest look over the
weekly paper which he had brought from the village. The good, kind
farmer! Hilda gazed at him as he sat all unconscious, and wondered why
she had not seen at once how handsome he really was. The broad forehead,
with its deep, thoughtful furrows; the keen, yet kindly blue eyes; the
"sable-silvered" hair and beard, which, if not exactly smooth, were
still so picturesque, so leonine; the firm, perhaps obstinate, mouth,
which could speak so wisely and smile so cordially,--all these combined
to make up what the newspapers would call a "singularly attractive
exterior." And "_Oh!_ how good he has been to me!" thought Hilda. "I
believe he is the best man in the world, next to papa." Then she thought
of Madge again, and tried to fancy her in her Redfern hat,--pretty
Madge, with her black eyes and curly fringe, under the "simplicity" of
the heaven-aspiring wings and bows; and as she smiled at the image,
there rose beside it the fair head of Pink Chirk, looking out like a
white rose from the depths of her dingy straw tunnel. Then she fancied
herself saying airily (she knew _just_ how she used to say it), "The
_little_ things, my dear, are the _only_ things!" and then she laughed
aloud at the very funniness of it.

"Hut! tut!" said Farmer Hartley, looking up from his paper with a smile.
"What's all this? Are ye keepin' all the jokes to yerself, Huldy?"

"It is only my letter that is so funny," replied Hilda. "I don't believe
it would seem so funny to you, Farmer Hartley, because you don't know
the writer. But have you finished your paper, and are you ready for
Robin Hood?"

"Wal, I am, Huldy!" said the good farmer, laying aside his paper and
rubbing his hands with an air of pleasurable anticipation. "'Pears to me
we left that good-lookin' singin' chap--what was his name?"

"Allan-a-Dale!" said Hilda, smiling.

"Ah!" said the farmer; "Allan-a-Dale. 'Pears to me we left him in
rayther a ticklish situation."

"Oh, but it comes out all right!" cried Hilda, joyously, rising to fetch
the good brown book which she loved. "You will see in the next chapter
how delightfully Robin gets him out of the difficulty." She ran and