"Poor child!" said Dame Hartley, with a sigh, "I fear she will have a
hard time of it before she comes to herself. But I promised Miss Mildred
that I would try my best; and you said you would help me, Jacob."

"So I did, and so I will!" replied the farmer. "But tell me agin, what
was Miss Mildred's idee? I got the giner'l drift of it, but I can't seem
to put it together exactly. I didn't s'pose the gal was _this_ kind,
anyhow."

"She told me," Dame Hartley said, "that this child--her only one, Jacob!
you know what that means--was getting into ways she didn't like. Going
about with other city misses, who cared for nothing but pleasure, and
who flattered and petted her because of her beauty and her pretty, proud
ways (and maybe because of her father's money too; though Miss Mildred
didn't say that), she was getting to think too much of herself, and to
care too much for fine dresses and sweetmeats and idle chatter about
nothing at all." (How Hilda's cheeks burned as she remembered the long
séances in her room, she on the sofa, and Madge in the arm-chair, with
the box of Huyler's or Maillard's best always between them! Had they
ever talked of anything "worth the while," as mamma would say? She
remembered mamma's coming in upon them once or twice, with her sweet,
grave face. She remembered, too, a certain uneasy feeling she had had
for a moment--only for a moment--when the door closed behind her mother.
But Madge had laughed, and said, "Isn't your mother perfectly sweet? She
doesn't mind a bit, does she?" and she had answered, "Oh, no!" and had
forgotten it in the account of Helen McIvor's new bonnet.) "And then
Miss Mildred said, 'I had meant to take her into the country with me
this summer, and try to show the child what life really means, and let
her learn to know her brothers and sisters in the different walks of
this life, and how they live, and what they do. I want her to see for