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“I have seen her a sight o’ times when I knew she was thinking about him,” Melissa went on presently, this time with a tenderness in her voice that touched Nelly’s heart. “She’s been dreadful lonesome. She and the old colonel, her father, wasn’t much company to each other, and she always kep’ every thing to herself. The only time she ever said a word to me was one night six or seven years ago this Christmas. They got up a Christmas-tree in the vestry, and she went, and I did too; I guess everybody in the whole church and parish that could crawl turned out to go. The children they made a dreadful racket. I’d ha’ got my ears took off if I had been so forth-putting when I was little. I was looking round for Miss H’ratia ‘long at the last of the evening, and somebody said they’d seen her go home. I hurried, and I couldn’t see any light in the house; and I was afraid she was sick or something. She come and let me in, and I see she had been a-cryin’. I says, ‘Have you heard any bad news?’ But she says, ‘No,’ and began to cry again, real pitiful. ‘I never felt so lonesome in my life,’ says she, ‘as I did down there. It’s a dreadful thing to be left all alone in the world.’ I did feel for her; but I couldn’t seem to say a word. I put some pine-chips I had handy for morning on the kitchen-fire, and I made her up a cup o’ good hot tea quick’s I could, and took it to her; and I guess she felt better. She never went to bed till three o’clock that night. I couldn’t shut my eyes till I heard her come upstairs. There! I set every thing by Miss H’ratia. I haven’t got no folks either. I was left an orphan over to Deerfield, where Miss’s mother come from, and she took me out o’ the town-farm to bring up. I remember, when I come here, I was so small I had a box to stand up on when I helped wash the dishes. There’s nothing I ain’t had to make me comfortable, and I do just as I’m a mind to, and call in extra help every day of the week if I give the word; but I’ve had my lonesome times, and I guess Miss H’ratia knew.”

Nelly was very much touched by this bit of a story, it was a new idea to her that Melissa should have so much affection and be so sympathetic. People never will get over being surprised that chestnut-burrs are not as rough inside as they are outside, and the girl’s heart warmed toward the old woman who had spoken with such unlooked-for sentiment and pathos. Melissa went to the house with her basket, and Nelly also went in, but only to put on another hat, and see if it were straight, in a minute spent before the old mirror, and then she hurried down the long elm-shaded street to buy a pound of citron for the cake. She left it on the kitchen-table when she came back, and nobody ever said any thing about it; only there were two delicious pound-cakes–a heart and a round–on a little blue china plate beside Nelly’s plate at tea.

After tea Nelly and Miss Dane sat in the front-doorway,–the elder woman in a high-backed arm-chair, and the younger on the doorstep. The tree-toads and crickets were tuning up heartily, the stars showed a little through the trees, and the elms looked heavy and black against the sky. The fragrance of the white lilies in the garden blew through the hall. Miss Horatia was tapping the ends of her fingers together. Probably she was not thinking of any thing in particular. She had had a very peaceful day, with the exception of the currants; and they had, after all, gone to the parsonage some time before noon. Beside this, the minister had sent word that the delay made no trouble; for his wife had unexpectedly gone to Downton to pass the day and night. Miss Horatia had received the business-letter for which she had been looking for several days; so there was nothing to regret deeply for that day, and there seemed to be nothing for one to dread on the morrow.