s, she went into the kitchen.

"Now, Willy," she said, "let us go to work and get supper, for I must
say I am hungry."

At this Willy Croup turned pale, her chin dropped, a horrible suspicion
took possession of her. Could it be possible that it was all a mistake,
or that something dreadful had happened; that the riches which everybody
had been talking about had never existed, or had disappeared? She might
want to go to her old home; she might want to see her goods and
chattels, but that she should want to help get supper--that was
incomprehensible! At that moment the world looked very black to Willy.
If Mrs. Cliff had gone into the parlor, and had sat down in the best
rocking-chair to rest herself, and had said to her, "Please get supper
as soon as you can," Willy would have believed in everything, but now--!

The grinding of heavy wheels was heard in front of the house, and Willy
turned quickly and looked out of the window. There was a wagon
containing seven enormous trunks! Since the days when Plainton was a
little hamlet, up to the present time, when it contained a hotel, a
bank, a lyceum, and a weekly paper, no one had ever arrived within its
limits with seven such trunks. Instantly the blackness disappeared from
before the mind of Willy Croup.

"Now, you tell the men where to carry them," she cried, "and I will get
the supper in no time! Betty Handshall stayed here until this morning,
but she went away after dinner, for she was afraid if she stayed she
would be in the way, not knowing how much help you would bring with
you."

"I wonder if they are all crack-brained," thought Mrs. Cliff, as she
went to the front door to attend to her baggage.

That evening nearly all Plainton came to see Mrs. Cliff. No matter how
she returned,--as a purse-proud bondholder, as a lady of elegant wealth
with her attendants, as an old friend suddenly grown jolly and
prosperous,--it would be all right for her neighbors to go in and see
her in the evening. There they might suit themselves to her new
deportment whatever it might be, and there would be no danger of any of
them getting into false positions, which would have been very likely
indeed if they had gone to meet her at the station.

Her return to her own house gave her real friends a great deal of
satisfaction, for some of them had feared she would not go there. It
would have been difficult for them to know how to greet Mrs. Cliff at a
hotel, even such an unpretentious one