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When, in acting on this advice, I vetoed Silvia's lukewarm proposition, I was convinced of Huldah's wisdom by seeing the look of relief that flashed into my wife's troubled countenance, and I knew that her suggestion had been but a perfunctory prompting of duty. Time alone could overcome the effects of her early environment! Introducing Our Next-door Neighbors
Huldah's face had turned even whiter than Emma's, when she heard who was near, and what he wanted, her fear of him had been so increased since he carried her away by force that night. But when she saw how eager her aunt was to see him, she did try to overcome her fears. Within a few moments of Miss Rose's telling of her "news," he was there, in their midst.
Miss Carew grew quite troubled about her about them both, in fact, for Huldah's nervousness, though she tried to keep it to herself, could scarcely be concealed from Mrs. Perry. Something must be done to distract the child's mind, she felt, but what? And then, as though to solve the difficulty for her, came an order for half a dozen of Huldah's pretty baskets.
"They are unloading children!" explained Silvia, in a tone implying that Huldah's sarcastic implication would be infinitely more preferable. "The van seems to be overflowing with them a perfect crowd. Do you suppose the house is to be used as an orphan asylum?" "I think not," I assured her as I counted the flock. Five children would seem like a crowd to Silvia.
"Have you got a bone with something on it?" Dinah produced a leg of mutton bone and some cold pudding. Huldah's eyes gleamed, as she thought of Dick's delight. Two bones in two days! He had never before known such a wonderful time. Miss Rose added two large dog biscuits. "Those will come in for his supper," she said. Huldah took the parcel with a joy she did not attempt to conceal.
To poor Dick, who had crept up so close that he stood beside her, this was too much. At the sound of her distress he was so overcome, he could no longer keep his feelings under restraint. A bark broke from him, eager, coaxing, half frightened; then, repentant and ashamed, he thrust his hot nose into Huldah's hand, and licked it apologetically.
I don't mind where I go, so long as Uncle Tom don't find us." "Well, I can't give you a bed here. I've only this room and my bedroom, and and " Mrs. Perry did not like to explain that she was too nervous, and too doubtful of Huldah's honesty to leave her alone in the kitchen, while she herself went to bed and to sleep.
Huldah's own little bed and looking-glass and odds and ends came from her bedroom in the cottage, and all together helped to make the two bare rooms look home-like and comfortable. The furniture was scanty and shabby, but to anyone accustomed to rough it as Emma Smith had done, the place was beautiful, and full of comfort and rest.
"Lead Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on. Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene, one step enough for me." Then Martha Perry's feeble voice joined in, and last of all Huldah's shy, weak treble. They were all so grateful, so full of thankfulness and faith, they could not help it.
There was an instant's pause, during which Huldah's breast ceased its regular rise and fall; then the clerk laughed sharply and cried with the apparent lightness of a happy-go-lucky temperament: "I should like to know if it was. I'd think it a very curious quin quin What's the word? quincedence, or something like that."
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