eant to return? Oh, but she
would come out so often to the farm! Papa and mamma would be willing,
would wish her to come; and she could not live long at a time in town,
without refreshing herself with a breath of _real_ air, country air. She
might have _wilted_ along somehow for sixteen years; but she had never
been _really_ alive--had she?--till this summer.

Pink and Bubble too! they would miss her almost as much. But that did
not trouble her, for she had a plan in her head for Pink and Bubble,--a
great plan, which was to be whispered to Papa _almost_ the very moment
she saw him,--not quite _the_ very moment, but the next thing to it. The
plan would please Nurse Lucy and the farmer too,--would please them
almost as much as it delighted her to think about it.

Happy thought! She would go down now and tell the farmer about it. Nurse
Lucy was lying down with a bad headache, she knew; but the farmer was
still in the kitchen. She heard him moving about now, though he had said
he was going off to the orchard. She would steal in softly and startle
him, and then--

Full of happy and loving thoughts, Hildegarde slipped quietly down the
stairs and across the hall, and peeped in at the kitchen-door to see
what the farmer was doing. He was at the farther end of the room, with
his back turned to her, stooping down over his desk. What was he doing?
What a singular attitude he was in! Then, all in a moment, Hilda's heart
seemed to stop beating, and her breath came thick and short; for she saw
that this man before her was not the farmer. The farmer had not long
elf-locks of black hair straggling over his coat-collar; he was not
round-shouldered or bow-legged; above all, he would not be picking the
lock of his own desk, for this was what the man before her was doing.
Silent as her own shadow, Hildegarde slipped back into the hall and
stood still a moment, collecting her thoughts. What should she do? Call
Dame Hartley? The "poor dear" was suffering much, and why should she be
disturbed? Run to find the farmer? She might have to run all over the
farm! No; she would attend to this herself. She was not in the least
afraid. She knew pretty well what ugly face would look up at her when
she spoke; for she felt sure that the slouching, ungainly figure was
that of Simon Hartley. Her heart burned with indignation against the
graceless, thankless churl who could rob the man on whose charity he had
been living for two years. She made a step for