evening. She is burning with curiosity--like all the rest of us for that
matter. She took me out, and used my eyes to see with, yesterday evening;
and they have not satisfied her. She is going to try your eyes, now."

"What is Miss Lucilla so curious about?" I inquired.

"It's natural enough, poor dear," pursued the old woman, following her
own train of thought, without the slightest reference to my question. "We
none of us can find out anything about him. He usually takes his walk at
twilight. You are pretty sure to meet him to-night; and you will judge
for yourself, ma'am--with an innocent young creature like Miss
Lucilla--what it may be best to do?"

This extraordinary answer set _my_ curiosity in a flame.

"My good creature!" I said, "you forget that I am a stranger! I know
nothing about it. Has this mysterious man got a name? Who is 'He'?"

As I said that, there was another knock at the door. Zillah whispered,
eagerly, "Don't tell upon me, ma'am! You will see for yourself. I only
speak for my young lady's good." She hobbled away, and opened the
door--and there was Lucilla, with her smart garden hat on, waiting for
me.

We went out by our own door into the garden, and passing through a gate
in the wall, entered the village.

After the caution which the nurse had given me, it was impossible to ask
any questions, except at the risk of making mischief in our little
household, on the first day of my joining it. I kept my eyes wide open,
and waited for events. I also committed a blunder at starting--I offered
Lucilla my hand to lead her. She burst out laughing.

"My dear Madame Pratolungo! I know my way better than you do. I roam all
over the neighborhood, with nothing to help me but this."

She held up a smart ivory walking-cane, with a bright silk tassel
attached. With her cane in one hand, and her chemical bottle in the
other--and her roguish little hat on the top of her head--she made the
quaintest and prettiest picture I had seen for many a long day. "_You_
shall guide _me_, my dear," I said--and took her arm. We went on down the
village.

Nothing in the least like a mysterious figure passed us in the twilight.
The few scattered laboring people, whom I had already seen, I saw
again--and that was all. Lucilla was silent--suspiciously silent as I
thought, after what Zillah had told me. She had, as I fancied, the look
of a person who was listening intently. Arrived at the cottage of the
rheumatic woman, she