she,--

"'You don't mean it, father: she won't ever dare to:' and when I said,
says I,--

"'Yes, she does: Hetty Gunn ain't a girl not to know what she means to
do. And that's just what she says she's goin' to do with you and Jim,'
she broke right out crying, out loud, just like a little baby, and says
she,--

"'If the Lord don't bless Hetty Gunn for bein' so good to us! she
sha'n't ever be sorry for it's long's she lives.'"

"Of course I sha'n't," said Hetty, bluntly. "I never was sorry yet for
any thing I did which was right, and I am as sure this is right as I am
that I am alive. When will they come?"

"Sarah said she would come right over to-day, if you'd like to have her
help you; and Jim he could fix up things at home, and shut the house
up. Jim said they'd better not let the house till you had tried how it
worked havin' 'em here. Jim don't seem very sanguine about it. Poor
fellow, he's got the spirit all taken out of him."

"Well, well, we'll put it back again, see if we don't, before the year
is out," replied Hetty, with a beaming smile, which made her face
beautiful.

It happened fortunately that poor Sarah Little first came to her new
home alone, rather than with her husband. The years of solitude and
disgrace through which they had lived, had made him dogged and defiant