She did not like to be called "my dear child," to begin with; and besides, she was very weary and heartsick, and altogether miserable.
But she tried to listen, as the good woman continued to talk in a cheery, comfortable tone, telling her how fond she had always been of "Miss Mildred," as she called Mrs.Graham, and how she had the care of her till she was almost a woman grown, and never would have left her then if Jacob Hartley hadn't got out of patience.
"And to think how you've grown, Hilda dear! You don't remember it, of course, but this isn't the first time you have been at Hartley's Glen.

A sweet baby you were, just toddling about on the prettiest little feet I ever saw, when your mamma brought you out here to spend a month with old Nurse Lucy.

And your father came out every week, whenever he could get away from his business.

What a fine man he is, to be sure! And he and my husband had rare times, shooting over the meadows, and fishing, and the like." They were still in the wood-road, now jolting along over ridges and hummocks, now ploughing through stretches of soft, sandy soil.

Above and on either side, the great trees interlaced their branches, sometimes letting them droop till they brushed against Hilda's cheek, sometimes lifting them to give her a glimpse of cool vistas of dusky green, shade within shade,--moss-grown hollows, where the St.John's-wort showed its tarnished gold, and white Indian pipe gleamed like silver along the ground; or stony beds over which, in the time of the spring rains, little brown brooks ran foaming and bubbling down through the woods.