any one may see, our liberties have nothing to fear from this poor
brain-stricken girl. And Robert Hagburn, having to bring a message from
camp to the selectmen here, had it in charge to bring the girl, whom his
mother has taken to board."

"Then the poor thing is crazy?" asked Septimius.

"A little brain-touched, that is all," replied Rose, "owing to some grief
that she has had; but she is quite harmless, Robert was told to say, and
needs little or no watching, and will get a kind of fantastic happiness
for herself, if only she is allowed to ramble about at her pleasure. If
thwarted, she might be very wild and miserable."

"Have you spoken with her?" asked Septimius.

"A word or two this morning, as I was going to my school," said Rose. "She
took me by the hand, and smiled, and said we would be friends, and that I
should show her where the flowers grew; for that she had a little spot of
her own that she wanted to plant with them. And she asked me if the
_Sanguinea sanguinissima_ grew hereabout. I should not have taken her
to be ailing in her wits, only for a kind of free-spokenness and
familiarity, as if we had been acquainted a long while; or as if she had
lived in some country where there are no forms and impediments in people's
getting acquainted."

"Did you like her?" inquired Septimius.

"Yes; almost loved her at first sight," answered Rose, "and I hope may do
her some little good, poor thing, being of her own age, and the only
companion, hereabouts, whom she is likely to find. But she has been well