"There! Sit down and let me get you a glass of water," said she. "What is it? Is she dead?" "No, no!" said Miss Weightman as soon as she could speak. "I could almost wish she were. Keziah, they have turned the poor girl off—sent her back to 'The Home.' She thought to the last minute she was going to school. She has been very sick, she tells me, and is only now getting about again." "Well," said Keziah, with emphasis, "I know one thing: I wouldn't be in their place for something. If they don't bring a curse on themselves and their child, I don't know anything. And she all the same as their own for so many years. Poor dear! No wonder she was sick. I hope the folks were kind to her." "She says they were," said Aunt Hannah, recurring to the letter. "She says she was very low—that they thought she would die, and wrote to Mrs. Bowers, but had no answer. She has found a friend in one of the old ladies. Dear me! To think of Anne Brown being in a 'Home.' She was very well off in a house of her own the last I knew of her. "'She has been very kind to me, as has everybody else,' Rhoda writes. 'She thinks I had better tell you all about it. Oh, aunty, do come and see me if you can.'" "You will go, won't you?" said Keziah. "Indeed I shall, and bring the child home with me," said Aunt Hannah. "While I have a roof over my head, that child shall never be dependent on a public charity. I will go to-morrow." "Jeduthun is going over to Shortsville, and can take you to the train as well as not, if you don't mind an early start," said Keziah, full of kindly sympathy, and at the same time not insensible to the pleasure of having authentic news of Rhoda to tell Mrs. Antis and her other friends. "Well, I never could have believed that of Mrs. Bowers. I wonder whether Rhoda did anything to displease them? I always thought she was one of the steadiest, piousest, best young girls in the whole town. I know, when she joined church last winter, Mr. Maynard said he never seen a young girl of her age that seemed to have a more realizing sense of religion than she had. Well, when her father and mother forsake her, the Lord 'll take her up. He don't never get tired of his adopted ones; that's one comfort, ain't it?" "It is indeed," said Aunt Hannah. "I am sure Rhoda is one of his little ones. Just now I must say I feel worse for John and Maria than for the child. She will have a home with me as long as I live, and it will go hard but I will contrive to educate her, so that she can provide for herself when I am gone." "Where are you going now?" asked Keziah as the old lady went into her bedroom and came out with her bonnet on. "I am going up to see Maria," answered Aunt Hannah. "I must know the whole story before I sleep. Remember, we have only heard one side as yet."