ithout her--she had a little hacking
cough every spring, and he knew she needed the change. It was decided
that she should go and stay a month, if she could keep away from home so
long. Aunt Hildy said: "Why, Mis' Minot, go right along. Don't you take
one stitch of work with you neither. Go, and let your lungs get full of
different air, and see what that'll do for you. Take along some
everlasting flowers I've got, and make a tea and drink it while you're
there, and let the tea and the air do their work together."

So, although it was a trial to mother to leave home, she went, and we
were to be alone. There were a good many of us, but it seemed to me, the
first week, that her place would not be filled by twenty others, and
while I enjoyed the thought of her being free from care, I walked out in
the cold March wind alone every night after supper, and let the tears
fall. If I had been indoors Clara would surely have found me. It was on
one of these walks that Mr. Benton overtook me, and passed his arm
within mine, saying:

"What does this mean, Emily," he dropped "Miss Minot" soon after the
first talk, "this is the fifth time I have seen you go out at this hour
alone; what is the matter? Are you in trouble?"

"And if I am," I said, "what have you to do with it?" at the same time
trying to release his arm from mine.

"I have the right of a dear friend, I hope," he said, and the tears that
would keep falling forced a confession from me and provoked his
laughter, which grated on my ears at first, but he begged pardon for its
seeming rudeness, and said he was thinking only of my going over the
hills to cry, when I could have a whole house to fill with tears.

We walked farther than I intended, and Matthias passed us on his way
over to his "ground room."

I said, "Good evening, Mr. Jones," and he saluted me with uncovered
head, saying:

"De Lord keep you, miss, till mornin'."

Realizing how far we had walked, I turned hack so suddenly that Mr.
Benton came near being pushed into the stone wall on the old road
corners. On our return he spoke of Matthias.

"I don't like that fellow anyway, Emily."

"Don't like him! why not, pray?"

He gave a sort of derisive ejaculation, and added:

"You are a little simpleton, Emily, so good and true, you take all for
gold."

"Well," I replied, "Matthias is good, I know; but why do you dislike
him?"

"Oh! he belongs to a miserable, low-lived, thievish race, and he knows
enough