d to walk quietly before her, clutching hold of
poor terrified Maggie's hand.

The hut to which the woman took the little girls was the very hermit's
hut to which their own steps had been bent. It was a very dirty place,
consisting of one room, which was now filled with smoke from a fire made
of broken faggots, fir-cones, and withered fern. Two ugly, lean-looking
dogs guarded the entrance to the hut. When they saw the woman coming,
they jumped up and began to bark savagely; poor Maggie began to scream,
and Polly for the first time discovered that there could be a worse
state of things than solitary confinement in her room, with Webster's
Dictionary for company.

"Sit you there," said the woman, pushing the little girls into the hut.
"I'll be back at nine o'clock. I'm off now on some business of my own.
When I come back I'll take your clothes, and give you a sack each to
wear. Cinder and Flinder will take care of you; they're very savage
dogs, and can bite awful, but they won't touch you if you sit very
quiet, and don't attempt to run away."

CHAPTER XIX.

DISTRESSED HEROINES.

If ever poor little girls found themselves in a sad plight it was the
two who now huddled close together in the hermit's hut. Even Polly was
thoroughly frightened, and as to Maggie, nothing but the angry growls of
Cinder restrained the violence of her sobs.

"Oh, ain't a hermit's life awful!" she whispered more than once to her
companion. "Oh! Miss Polly, why did you speak of Peg-Top Moor, and the
hermit's hut, and berries and water?"

"Don't be silly, Maggie," said Polly, "I did not mention the wife of
Micah Jones, nor these dreadful dogs. This is a misfortune, and we must
bear it as best we can. Have you none of the spirit of a heroine in you,
Maggie; don't you know that in all the story-books, when the heroines
run away, they come to dreadful grief? If we look at it in that light,
and think of ourselves as distressed heroines, it will help us to bear
up. Indeed," continued Polly, "if it wasn't for my having been naughty a
few days ago, and perhaps father coming back to-night, I think I'd enjoy
this--I would really. As it is----" Here the brave little voice broke
off into a decided quaver. The night was falling, the stars were coming
out in the sky, and Polly, standing in the door of the hut, with her arm
thrown protectingly round Maggie's neck, found a great rush of
loneliness come over her.

During those weary days spent in h