She could still feel that Aunt Emma was near her, and safe, and in
the best of all keeping, at peace for ever and ever.
They thought it best that Huldah should not go back to the empty
rooms again, and she was glad; so after the service was over she
walked back to her old home once again, as though she had never left
it, and the last few months had been but a dream. And it was all so
like a dream that at the top of the lane she paused and looked about
her, half bewildered. Could she be, she asked herself, the same
Huldah who not so many months before had stood there a cowed,
frightened, hunted thing, starving, exhausted, but minding nothing as
long as--as what?
As long as she escaped from the two she had so lately parted with,
with such an aching heart. She looked down over her black frock.
She felt the sadness in her heart, the sense of loss. Could such
changes really have come about, that now she was full of grief that
she could never again see or hear the aunt she had so feared?
"Come home, dear; come home. I want you too, oh so badly!"
Aunt Martha's voice broke in on her thoughts, and brought her quickly
back to the present. Aunt Martha's face was white and tired with
cold and weariness. Huldah was filled with repentance.
"Oh, you're tired," she cried, remorsefully, "and chilled, and I'm
keeping you standing here.
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