"Oh no, I don't think that," answered his wife; "Anne is no hand to save in that way. But she has always liked Rhoda, and she wanted her when we first took the child; but Rhoda isn't going, and that is all about it. She is doing well enough about school here, and I don't want her set up to feel above me." Rhoda had been a good deal disappointed by this decision:—not that she was at all dissatisfied with her present condition, but she liked Aunt Anne and Uncle Evans, and she wanted to see a little more of the world than was to be found at Boonville; and besides that, she was very desirous of getting a thoroughly good education. She had nearly exhausted the capabilities of the district school, and Mrs. Maynard, the minister's wife, who had kindly undertaken to carry her on farther in her studies, had gone away. Yes, Rhoda would have liked to go to Hobarttown. But the offer had never been renewed, and now Mr. and Mrs. Evans were going to Europe, to be absent three or four years. It was a disappointment certainly, but there was no help for it, and there was no use in making herself miserable over it, either—so Rhoda argued with herself, very sensibly; so she put away the thought of what she might have done at Hobarttown, and set herself to accomplish as much as she possibly could at home. There was another cloud which had lately appeared in Rhoda's sky. She had said to herself that this cloud was all in her imagination, or at least was no more than a passing mist. But this afternoon, as she walked across the fields toward Aunt Hannah's, it assumed a more definite shape and consistency than it had ever done before, and she said to herself that she would ask Aunt Hannah about it. CHAPTER II. _AUNT HANNAH._ AUNT HANNAH WEIGHTMAN lived in a little red house near the edge of the mill-pond, as it was called, though it was little more than a widening of the Outlet, caused by the dam which supplied Mr. Francis's mills. The situation was a very pretty one. On one side of the house lay Aunt Hannah's garden, green with well-conditioned vegetables and gay with flowers, not only of the commoner but also of the rarer kinds, for she was one of those people for whom everything grows. On the other side lay three or four acres of pasture-land, enough, with some help, to keep Aunt Hannah's white cow, most wonderful of milkers both for quantity and quality, and where grew in their season the finest mushrooms in the country.