"Nonsense, Nan!" said Hetty, goodnaturedly: "what put such an idea into
your head? Haven't I ridden Polly many a darker night than this?"

"Yes'm," sobbed Nan; "but to-night's different. All our luck's gone:
'When the master's dead, the house is shook,' they say where I was
raised. Oh, Miss Hetty! it's lonesome's death in the kitchen."

Hetty threw open the door into the sitting-room. "Put on a stick of
wood, Nan, and make the fire blaze up," she said.

While Nan was doing this, Hetty lighted the lamps, drew down the
curtains, and gave the room its ordinary evening look. Then she said,--

"Now, Nan, sit down: I want to talk with you," and Hetty herself sat
down in her father's chair on the right hand of the fireplace.

"Oh, Miss Hetty!" cried Nan, "don't you go set in that chair: you'll die
before the year 's out if you do. Oh please, Miss Hetty! get right up;"
and the poor old woman took forcible hold of her young mistress's arms,
and tried to lift her from the chair.

"To please you, I will sit in another chair now, Nan, because I want
you to be quiet and listen to me. But that will be my chair to sit in
always, just as it used to be my father's; and I shall not die before
the year 's out, Nan, nor I hope for a great many years to come yet,"
said Hetty.

"Oh, no! please the Lord, Miss Hetty," sobbed Nan: "who'd take care of
Caesar an' me ef you was to die."