Bluebell always brought every piece of gossip she could collect to feed
Miss Opie's inquisitive mind who was in no way exempt from the sin
supposed to most easily beset spinsterhood and her girlish spirits
brightened the quiet cottage and left their echo behind through the dull
week. She was by no means an unmixed good when she lived there. Her
vivacity, having nothing to expend itself on, often turned to desperate
fits of discontent and _ennui_, but now, coming home was a holiday and
change.

All the inhabitants, old ladies, and new girl (for each successive one
went away to better herself after a few weeks residence), assembled
simultaneously at the hall door, and drew their visitor from the bitter
blast into the stove lit parlour. One yet more humble welcomer was there
of the vagabond tribe--petty larceny in every curve of his ungainly form,
and his spirit so broken by adversity that he only ventured to wag his
shabby tail in recognition of his benefactress.

This was Bluebell's casual--one of a too common race in Canada of
homeless, starved animals there being no Refuge or dog tax to compel them
to live under protection or not at all.

This reclaimed cur after overcoming his strong suspicion of poison, had
supported himself for sometime on the food Bluebell placed for him in the
shed and when emboldened by hunger and the handsome treatment he had
received he ventured into the house, he was authorized to remain as watch
dog and protector.

In the summer, too, horses were added to her pensioners and invited in to
graze on the patch of enclosed grass at the back of the cottage, till it
fell short from being burned up or eaten, for the common was haunted with