ickly with a little laugh, though her brows contracted
slightly, as if with pain. "Oh, yes, Mother dear!" she said; "Miss
Graham has heard all about me, and knows what a _very_ important person
I am. But where is the yarn that I was to wind for you? I thought you
wanted to begin weaving this afternoon."

"Oh!" exclaimed Hildegarde. "Never mind the yarn just now, Pink! I want
to give you a little ride before I go back to the farm. May she go, Mrs.
Chirk? It is such a beautiful day, I am sure the air will do her good.
Would you like it, Pink?"

Pink looked up with a flush of pleasure on her pale cheek. "Oh," she
said, "would I like it! But it's too much for you to do, Miss Graham."

"An' with that beautiful dress on too!" cried Mrs. Chirk. "You'd get it
dusty on the wheel, I'm afraid. I don't think--"

"Oh yes, you do!" cried Hilda, gayly, pushing the chair towards the
door. "Bring her hat, please, Mrs. Chirk. I always have my own way!" she
added, with a touch of the old imperiousness, "and I have quite set my
heart on this."

Mrs. Chirk meekly brought a straw sun-bonnet, and Hilda tied its strings
under Pink's chin, every fibre within her mutely protesting against its
extreme ugliness. "She shall not wear _that_ again," said she to
herself, "if I can help it." But the sweet pale face looked out so
joyously from the dingy yellow tunnel that the stern young autocrat
relented. "After all, what does it matter?" she thought. "She would
look like an angel, even with a real coal-scuttle on her head." And
then she laughed at the thought of a black japanned scuttle crowning
those fair locks; and Pink laughed because Hilda laughed; and so they
both went laughing out into the sunshine.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LETTER.

"Nurse Lucy," said Hildegarde that evening, as they sat in the porch
after tea, "why have you never told me about Pink Chirk,--about her
being a cripple, I mean? I had no idea of it till I went to see her
to-day. How terrible it is!"

"I wonder that I haven't told you, dear!" replied Nurse Lucy, placidly.
"I suppose I am so used to Pink as she is, I forget that she ever was
like other people. She is a dear, good child,--his 'sermon,' Jacob calls
her. He says that whenever he feels impatient or put out, he likes to go
down and look at Pink, and hear her talk. 'It takes the crook right out
of me!' he says. Poor Jacob!"

"But how did it happen?" asked Hilda. "She says she was only three years
when she--O