and blood and family, and all that sort of nonsense, but after all I
wouldn't for anything be poor and work as poor folks do."

"I'll never tell her, never," muttered Hagar; and Maggie continued:
"What a queer habit you have of talking to yourself. Did you always do
so?"

"Not always. It came upon me with the secret," Hagar answered
inadvertently; and eagerly catching at the last word, which to her
implied a world of romance and mystery, Maggie exclaimed: "The secret,
Hagar, the secret! If there's anything I delight in it's a secret!"
and, sliding down from the rude bench to the grass-plat at Hagar's
feet, she continued: "Tell it to me, Hagar, that's a dear old woman.
I'll never tell anybody as long as I live. I won't, upon my word,"
she continued, as she saw the look of horror resting on Hagar's face;
"I'll help you keep it, and we'll have such grand times talking it
over. Did it concern yourself?" and Maggie folded her arms upon the
lap of the old woman, who answered in a voice so hoarse and unnatural
that Maggie involuntarily shuddered, "Old Hagar would die inch by inch
sooner than tell you, Maggie Miller, her secret."

"Was it, then, so dreadful?" asked Maggie half fearfully, and casting
a stealthy glance at the dim woods, where the night shadows were
falling, and whose winding path she must traverse alone on her
homeward route. "Was it, then, so dreadful?"

"Yes, dreadful, dreadful; and yet, Maggie, I have sometimes wished
you knew it. You would forgive me, perhaps. If you knew how I was
tempted," said Hagar, and her voice was full of yearning tenderness,
while her bony fingers parted lovingly the shining hair from off the