defend us from her formidable blows. I made a louder noise with the horn
than I need to have done; it has startled your husband, and he is coming
from his plough; and there is my wife and Bessie running to see what is
the matter over here."

By this time the truant boy and his companion approached the house, and
he mounted the steps of the piazza with eager haste, pulling her after
him, immediately upon the arrival of his father, Aunt Mary, and Cousin
Bessie. Brief explanation was made, that the horn was blown to hurry
Willie home; and all exclaimed,--

"Why, Willie! who is this?"

"Found her squatting on the grass, pulling flowers," he replied, almost
out of breath. "Don't know her name. She talks lingo."

The whole company laughed. The new-comer was a roly-poly, round enough
to roll, with reddish-brown face, and a mop of black hair, cut in a
straight line just above the eyes. But _such_ eyes! large and lambent,
with a foreshadowing of sadness in their expression. They shone in her
dark face like moonlit waters in the dusky landscape of evening. Her
only garment was a short kirtle of plaited grass, not long enough to
conceal her chubby knees. She understood no word of English, and, when
spoken to, repeated an Indian phrase, enigmatical to all present. She
clung to Willie, as if he were an old friend; and he, quite proud of
the manliness of being a protector, stood with his arm across her brown
shoulders, half offended at their merriment, saying,--

"She's _my_ little girl. _I_ found her."

"I _thought_ he'd been to the land of Nod to get him a wife," said Uncle
George, smiling.

Little Bessie, with clean apron, and flaxen hair nicely tied up with
ribbons, was rather shy of the stranger.

"She'th dirty," lisped she, pointing to her feet.

"Well, s'pose she is?" retorted William. "I guess _you_'d be dirty, too,
if you'd been running about in the mud, without any shoes. But she's
pretty. She's like my black kitten, only she a'n't got a white nose."

Willie's comparison was received with shouts of laughter; for there
really was some resemblance to the black kitten in that queer little
face. But when the small mouth quivered with a grieved expression, and
she clung closer to Willie, as if afraid, kind Uncle George patted her
head, and tried to part the short, thick, black hair, which would not
stay parted, but insisted upon hanging straight over her eyebrows. Baby
Emma had been wakened in her cradle by the noise,