As it was, she scrambled out over the hedge and
into the lane in a somewhat sobered mood. The thought of what might
have been, made her heart beat fast and her limbs tremble, and her
new life seemed more than ever beautiful.
Miss Carew meanwhile had stood watching Huldah flitting like a little
dark shadow along the road. "What an odd little brown thing she is!"
she thought to herself, half-amused, half-sad. "I ain't nobody's
relative, I haven't got nobody but Dick! She seemed so cheerful
about it, too, it makes one feel that she did not mind the want.
I wonder--but I must go and hear more about the strange pair who seem
to have dropped out of the clouds to act as good fairies to poor
Martha Perry."
When, about an hour later, Miss Carew reached the little cottage in
Woodend Lane, she found Huldah washing the floor of the little
kitchen, Dick lying in the garden gnawing his bone, and Martha Perry
lying in bed with eighteenpence on the table beside her, and a bunch
of flowers in a jug. Huldah had taken off Mrs. Perry's apron, for
that was far too clean and precious to be worn for such work, whereas
her old dress could not possibly be made shabbier.
When she saw Miss Carew standing on the doorstep, she looked up with
a bright smile of welcome. "Please to walk in, miss," she said,
shyly.
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