t over, Maria, if you feel moved to. I don't know
but what you're wise. P'r'aps William an' I'll walk over, after
supper's put away. I guess you've got a busy day before you."

She stood at the open door and watched Maria Durrant go away, a few
minutes later, with a plump bundle under one arm.

"I should think you were going to seek your fortune," she called
merrily, as the good woman turned into the road; but Maria wagged her
head with a cheerful nod, and did not deign to look back. "I ought to
have given her some bread to tuck under the other arm, like the
picture of Benjamin Franklin. I dare say they do need bread; I ought
to have thought of it," said Marilla anxiously, as she returned to the
pantry.

"But there! Father Haydon's got as far along in housekeeping as
stopping the baker; an' he was put out because I sent things too soon,
before aunt Martin's provisions were gone. I'll risk cousin Maria to
get along."

The new housekeeper trod the little footpath at the road edge with a
firm step. She was as eager and delighted as if she were bent on a
day's pleasuring. A truly sympathetic, unselfish heart beat in her
breast; she fairly longed to make the lonely, obstinate old man
comfortable. Presently she found herself going up the long Haydon lane
in the shade of the apple-trees. The great walnut-trees at the other
side of the house were huge and heavy with leaves; there was a general
floweriness and pleasantness over all growing things; but the tall
thin spruce that towered before the front door looked black and
solitary, and bore a likeness to old Mr. Haydon himself. Such was the
force of this comparison that Miss Durrant stopped and looked at it
with compassion.

Then her eyes fell upon the poor flower bed overgrown with weeds,
through which the bachelor's-buttons and London-pride were pushing
their way into bloom. "I guess I'll set a vine to grow up that tree;
't would get sun enough, an' look real live and pretty," she decided,
surveying the situation; then she moved on, with perhaps less
eagerness in her gait, and boldly entered the side door of the house.
She could hear the sound of an axe in the shed, as if some one were
chopping up kindlings. When she caught sight of the empty kitchen she
dropped her bundle into the nearest chair, and held up her hands in
what was no affectation of an appearance of despair.

IV.

One day in May, about a year from the time that Martha Haydon died,
Maria Durrant was