absolutely bewitching. Molly had hitched the horse, in manly and
knowing fashion, and then seated herself on the kitchen chair beside
Lucindy; but the attitude seemed not to suit her, and presently she
rose and lay quietly down at full length on the grass. She did it quite
as a matter of course, and her visitor thought it looked very pleasant;
possibly she would have tried it herself if she had not been so
absorbed in another interest. She was watching the little girl, who was
running into the house with the dipper.

"Ain't she complete!" she said. "Your oldest?"

"She ain't mine at 'all." Mrs. McNeil rose on one elbow, and began
chewing a grass stem.

It was very restful to Lucindy to see some one who was too much
interested in anything, however trivial, to be interested in her. "You
know about the Italian that come round with the hand-organ last month?
He was her father. Well, he died,--fell off a mow one night,--and the
town sold the hand-organ and kept Ellen awhile on the farm. But she run
away, and my boys found her hidin' in the woods starved most to death.
So I took her in, and the overseer said I was welcome to her. She's a
nice little soul."

"She's proper good-lookin'!" Lucindy's eyes were sparkling.

"She don't look as well as common to-day, for the boys went off
plummin' without her. She was asleep, and I didn't want to call her.
She had a cryin' spell when she waked up, but I didn't know which way
they'd gone."