began a series of crab-like bows.

"Oh!" cried Hildegarde, eagerly, "there is Mrs. Lankton, and she
will know all about it."

"Yes," chimed in the children, in every variety of shrill treble.
"Widder Lankton, SHE'LL know all about it, sure!"

Mrs. Lankton was surrounded in a moment, and brought up on the
piazza. Here she sat, turning her head from side to side, like a
lean and pensive parrot, and struggling to get her breath.

"It's ketched me!" she said, faintly, in reply to the girls'
questions. "Miss Grahame, my dear, it's ketched me in my right
side, and I like t' ha' died on your thrishold. Yes, my dear," she
nodded her head many times, and repeated with unction, "I like t'
ha' died on your thrishold."

"Oh, I am so sorry, Mrs. Lankton!" said Hildegarde, soothingly,
while she quieted with a look Bell's horrified anxiety.

"I think you will be able to go in and get a cup of tea presently,
won't you? And that will take away the pain, I hope."

Mrs. Lankton's countenance assumed a repressed cheerfulness. "You
may be right, dear!" she said. "I shouldn't go to contradict your
blessed mother's darter, not if she told me to get a hull supper,
let alone a cup o' tea, as is warming to the innards, let him deny
it who will. There! I feel it a leetle better now a'ready," she
announced. "Ah, it's a blessed privilege you have, Miss Grahame!"