To Dick the cleanness and neatness meant nothing, the rag mat before the hearth was the most luxurious thing he had ever seen in the whole of his life, and he stretched his lanky aching body on it with a deep sigh of perfect bliss, and promptly fell asleep. Huldah and old Mrs. Perry meanwhile stood in the middle of the kitchen surveying each other. "Sit down, child," said Martha, at last, "you look fit to drop." She spoke brusquely but not unkindly. "Thank you, ma'am," said Huldah, gratefully, and perched herself, with a long-drawn breath of excitement, on the edge of the hard chair nearest the door. "Not there. Go and sit in the arm-chair by the fire-place. Would you like a cup of tea?" "Oh!" gasped Huldah, almost too delighted to be able to find words to answer with. There was more pleasure, though, in her tone than any number of words could have conveyed. "The kettle is on the boil. I was just going to have a cup myself, before I went to bed." "Oh, thank you, ma'am!" gasped Huldah, feebly, but again with a world of gratitude in her tone. "Put down your load for a time, then, and rest your arms." Then, as her eyes fell on the baskets the child had been carrying, "Was it one of those you offered me for a bit of bread?" "Yes, ma'am," answered Huldah, shyly. "Well, you meant well, I don't doubt, but those baskets are worth more than a bit of bread. They ought to sell for eighteenpence or two shillings each, I should say." "Yes, ma'am, Aunt Emma always asks half-a-crown, and then comes down to two shillings or eighteenpence," said Huldah, innocently. "Who's Aunt Emma?" Huldah hesitated a moment, somewhat at a loss how to explain. "She isn't my real aunt, though I calls her so. She and Uncle Tom ain't any relation to me really. They're called Smith, and my name is Huldah Bate; but when mother died--" "Haven't you got any mother?" "No, ma'am, and father is dead too. He died when I was too little to remember, and mother earned her living by making baskets, and when I was big enough she taught me." "How long ago did your mother die?" asked Mrs. Perry, more gently. "Two years, ma'am, and when she died Aunt Emma and Uncle Tom said I was to go and live with them. They said mother had said I was to." "Um! Did your mother think so much of them, then?" "No, ma'am. They was always too rough for mother, they drinks a lot, and--and swears terrible, and they'm always fighting." "I wonder at your mother leaving you to such people to be took care of." "I don't believe mother ever did," said Huldah, "she never told me so, anyway," and she burst into bitter sobs; "but there wasn't anybody else there, and they told the parish orf'cer that I was their little girl, and then they went away as fast as they could, and took me with them." "Are they kind to you?"