keep us both pretty well. I must go
with her, Miss Rose, wherever she goes; she hasn't got anybody else."

This of course they could not allow. They could never send such a
child as Huldah out into the world, with only a dying woman as
companion and protector, to live where and how she could, in nobody
knew what dreadful haunts. So it was decided between them that Emma
Smith was to settle down amongst them, and Huldah must leave Mrs.
Perry and go to live with her. No lodgings could be found for her,
for in that village the houses were not big enough to hold in comfort
even the families that lived in them, and there was certainly no room
for a lodger. And houses were as scarce as lodgings.

At last a brilliant idea came to Miss Carew, and with her father's
permission she hurried off with the good news.

"You shall have the two rooms over our coach-house," she cried,
delightedly, for it was a real relief to her to feel that Huldah
would be so near her, and under her own eye. "They are a good size,
and dry and airy; and we must all pull together to get what furniture
we can."

Huldah's face grew brighter and brighter with every word Miss Rose
uttered, for she had begun to fear that they would have to go
elsewhere.

To be near Miss Rose, too, would help to make up for the pain of
leaving Aunt Martha and Dick and the cottage, a parting which had
been weighing on her more heavily than she would have liked anyone to
know. Dick, it was decided, was to remain with Mrs. Perry, for
without him she declared she could not live on in the cottage when
Huldah was gone.

As soon as the rooms had been cleaned and papered, the furnishing
began, and that was really rather fun. No one was rich, and no
one could give much, but what they gave they gave with a will.
Miss Rose turned out some sheets and pillow-cases, a table and a
chair, the vicar ordered in half a ton of coal, the doctor's wife
gave them a bed, some pieces of carpet, curtains, a kettle and an old
basket chair. Mrs. Perry gave a teapot, cups and saucers, and a
rag-rug of her own making. The doctor sent in some pots and pans,
and meat and other food to put in them, and the folks in the village,
who had come to know Huldah's story, turned out something, and sent,
a jug, a brush, a sack of firewood, a bar of soap, and all manner of
odds and ends, every one of which came in usefully. Huldah's own
little bed and looking-glass and odds and ends came from her bedro