he'd
been tellin' over what luck Nancy'd had down to Hartford: how't she
had gone into a shop, and a young man had been struck with her good
looks, an' he'd turned out to be a master-shoemaker, and Nancy was
a-goin' to be married, and so on, a rigmarole as long as the moral
law,--windin' up with askin' mother why she didn't send us girls off
to try our luck, for Major was as old as Nance Perrit. I'd waited to
hear mother say, in her old bright way, that she couldn't afford it,
and she couldn't spare us, if she had the means, and then I flung up
into our room, that was a lean-to in the garret, with a winder in the
gable end, and there I set down by the winder with my chin on the
sill, and begun to wonder why we couldn't have as good luck as the
Perrits. After I'd got real miserable, I heerd a soft step comin' up
stairs, and Major come in and looked at me and then out of the winder.

"What's the matter of you, Anny?" said she.

"Nothing," says I, as sulky as you please.

"Nothing always means something," says Major, as pleasant as pie; and
then she scooched down on the floor and pulled my two hands away, and
looked me in the face as bright and honest as ever you see a dandelion
look out of the grass. "What is it, Anny? Spit it out, as John Potter
says; you'll feel better to free your mind."

"Well," says I, "Major, I'm tired of bad luck."

"Why, Anny! I didn't know as we'd had any. I'm sure, it's three years
since father died, and we have had enough to live on all that time,
and I've got my schooling, and we are all well; and just look at the
apple-trees,--all as pink as your frock with blossoms; that's good for
new cloaks next winter, Anny."

"'Ta'n't that, Major. I was thinkin' about Nancy Perrit. If we'd had
the luck to go to Hartford, may-be you'd have been as well off as she;
and then I'd have got work, too. And I wish I was as pretty as she is,
Major; it does seem too bad to be poor and humbly too."

I wonder she didn't laugh at me, but she was very feelin' for folks,
always. She put her head on the window-sill along of mine, and kinder
nestled up to me in her lovin' way, and said, softly,--

"I wouldn't quarrel with the Lord, Anny."

"Why, Major! you scare me! I haven't said nothing against the Lord.
What do you mean?" said I,--for I was touchy, real touchy.

"Well, dear, you see we've done all we can to help ourselves; and
what's over and above, that we can't help,--that is what the Lord
orders, a'n't