the door opened suddenly and little Lucina come in on a run and
stopped short a minute with timid finger to her mouth, and eyes as
innocently surprised as a little rabbit's.

Lucina, being unhooded to-day, showed all her shower of shining
yellow curls, which covered her little shoulders and fell to her
childish waist. Her fat white neck and dimpled arms were bare and
gleaming through the curls, and she wore a lace-trimmed pinafore, and
a frock of soft blue wool scalloped with silk around the hem,
revealing below the finest starched pantalets, and little morocco
shoes.

Squire Eben laughed fondly, to see her start and hesitate, as a man
will laugh at the pretty tricks of one he loves. "Come here, Pretty,"
he cried. "There's nothing for you to be afraid of. This is only poor
little Jerome Edwards. Come and shake hands with him," and bade her
thus, thinking another child might encourage the boy.

With that Lucina hesitated no longer, but advanced, smiling softly,
with the little lady-ways her mother had taught her, and held out her
white morsel of a hand to the boy. "How do you do?" she said,
prettily, though still a little shyly, for she was mindful how her
gingerbread had been refused, and might not this strange poor boy
also thrust the hand away with scorn? She said that, and looking
down, lest that black angry flash of his eyes startle her again, she
saw his poor broken shoes, and gave a soft little cry, then made a
pitiful lip, and stared hard at them with wide eyes full of
astonished compassion, for the shoes seemed to her much more forlorn
than bare feet.