return."

"Betty is gossiping in the garret chamber with Sally Tracy; surely I
must stop with you, Biddy, dear;" and Moppet twined her arms around Miss
Bidwell's neck, with her little coaxing face upraised for a kiss. When
Moppet said "Biddy dear" (which was her baby abbreviation for the old
servant), she became irresistible; so Miss Bidwell, much relieved at
dropping so puzzling a theological question as the propriety of
supplications for the well-being of his Satanic majesty, proposed that
she should tell Miss Moppet "a story," which met with delighted assent
from the little girl.

Miss Bidwell's stories, which dated back for many years and always began
with "when I was a little maid," were never failing in interest besides
being somewhat lengthy, as Moppet insisted upon minute detail, and
invariably corrected her when she chanced to omit the smallest
particular. That the story had been often told did not make it lose any
of its interest, and the shadows of the great elm which overhung the
sitting-room windows grew longer, while the sun sank lower and lower
unheeded, until Miss Bidwell, at the most thrilling part of her tale,
where a bloodthirsty and evil-minded Indian was about to appear,
suddenly laid down her work and exclaimed:--

"Hark! surely there is some one coming up the back path," and rising as
she spoke, she hurried out to the side porch, closely followed by
Moppet, who said to herself, with all a child's vivid and dramatic
imagination, "Perhaps it's an Indian coming to tomahawk us in our beds!"
which thought caused her to seize a fold of Miss Bidwell's gown tightly
in her hand.