song being finished, Hetty and her mother drew their chairs
up to the fire; Hetty sat next me, and after a severe inward
struggle I summoned the courage to ask her a question. She
answered me in the fewest words possible, but in a voice so
sweet and low that I wondered then and often afterward at
its contrast to the other voices I had heard in that house.
She wore a home-spun frock and a neat white pinafore, set
off with a dainty ribbon tied about her throat.

"She's uncommon still when strangers is here, sir," said
Mrs. Chaffin; "but law me! she goes rompitin' about the
house like as if she was crazy sometimes, ticklin' her
father and tryin' t' snip off his beard with the scissors."

That night was the beginning of happier days for me. When at
last I rose to go it was near midnight. I forgot my
weariness as I walked to my lodgings, thinking of those
simple, honest people and of their kindness to me.

I enjoyed high jinks at the house of the Chaffins at least
once a week during the next year of my apprenticeship, near
the close of which I began to get ready for a visit to my
stepmother in fulfilment of a promise I had made by letter.
It had been, on the whole, a happy year to me. I had known
many lonely hours, to be sure, but those visits to the
little old weather-stained house, in which I found my first
friends after leaving home, cheered me from week to week. I
knew, too, that Hetty enjoyed those long evenings as much as
I did, which meant more to me than I would have dared
confess to her. I thought of her a good deal, but it always