I wondered what the little girl would be like; and my heart went out to her in her loneliness.

Scarcely realizing it, I was lonely also.
"Has he spoken yet ?" I questioned anxiously of my mother, as I came up to the open kitchen door when the evening chores were done.
"No, John," she answered, "he has been sitting there silently looking out at the woods ever since the man left.

He is thinking, dear, and we must not worry him." The supper-table had been cleared away, and Seth, the hired man, had crept up the creaking ladder to his bed under the eaves, before my father spoke.

We were all three together in the room, and I had drawn his chair forward, as was my custom, where the candle-light flickered upon his face.

I knew by the look of calm resolve in his gray eyes that a decision had been reached.
"Mary," he began gravely, "and you, John, we must talk together of this new duty which has just come to us.