ow, I do call that
just perfect!"

The child's face was glowing with health and happiness, her eyes were
beaming with affection, and eager for sympathy. Could she possibly
be the little ill-used, runaway waif who had come to her door
starving, only so short a time ago? Mrs. Perry asked herself the
question as she looked at her, and in her heart thanked God for
sending her this blessing, this chance to help another; and for
staying her tongue when she had felt tempted to bid her begone.

Across her mind too flashed the thought of what might have happened
to Huldah, if she had turned her away that night. Would it have been
to the workhouse, or the jail she would have drifted,--this bonnie,
healthy, smiling child? But her mind was drawn back to healthier
thoughts by Huldah's little brown work-worn hands.

"Don't you like it, ma'am?" she was asking, troubled by the gravity
on Mrs. Perry's face.

"Like it!" she cried, coming back to the present with glad relief.
"I should think I did, and you in it, too, dear!" and for the first
time in her life she stooped and kissed the little maiden, and Huldah
returned the kiss with all the warmth of her affectionate heart
welling up to her lips.

It was the first time anyone had kissed her since her mother died,
and the first time that she had kissed anyone but Dick and Charlie.

CHAPTER VII.

A MEETING AND AN ALARM.

Autumn had come now; late autumn with winter not so very far off,
and the days were growing very short and dark; so short and dark
that there was no chance of working early in the morning before
she went downstairs, nor after she went to bed at night, except
by candlelight, and she could not, of course, burn candles.
So Mrs. Perry had to be taken into the secret, and Huldah worked in
comfort by the fire in the afternoons, after she had done her
housework.

And how she did love those cosy afternoons, and how the memory of
them lived with her all her life after! The wind and rain storming
outside, the snug little kitchen, where they sat so cosy and warm,
Dick lying contentedly on his rug, Mrs. Perry sitting in her armchair
by the fire, reading aloud from one of her few but precious books.
They were old, those stories, but to Huldah they were more beautiful
than any she ever came across later on.

Then came the glad day when the basket was completed. Huldah had
taken more pains with it than with any she had ever made, and her
care was rewarded, for