With all its dilapidation, there was something picturesque and attractive about the old homestead--a mingling of rude taste and neglect, unthrifty, but suggestive of innate character. Mary Fuller looked around her, with that keen relish of gay colors and rude outline, that a rich uncultivated taste appreciates best. The glow of those warmly-tinted, bold garden flowers seemed like a welcome; and the soft rush of the river, which she had so feared to love, seemed like the voice of an old friend following her among strangers. She had some little time for observation, for the gate opened with difficulty, groaning on its hinges, scraping its way in the segment of a circle upon the ground, and tearing up grass by the roots in its progress. Evidently the front door was not in very frequent use, and the stubborn old gate seemed determined that it never should be again. A wren shot away from the porch, as the Judge and his protege entered it, and went fluttering in and out through the green branches waving over it quite distractedly, as if she had never seen a human being there in her whole birdhood before. "Poor little coward," said the Judge, "it's afraid we shall drive its young ones from their old home." Mary had followed the fugitive with sparkling eyes, and she now began peering among the leaves, expecting to find a nest full of darling little birdlings chirping for food. For aught she knew, poor alley-bred child, the birds built nests and filled them with eggs all the year round. Judge Sharp rapped upon the door with his knuckles, for the old iron knocker groaned worse than the gate when he attempted to raise it. After a little, the door opened with a jerk; for, like the gate, it swung low, grating upon the threshold. In the entry stood a woman, tall beyond what is common in her sex, square built and slightly stooping, not from feebleness, however, but habit. The woman might have been handsome in her youth, for there still existed a remnant of beauty in that cold, grave face, threaded with wrinkles, and shaded by hair of a dull iron grey. Her eyes were keen, and intensely black; they must have had fire in them once; if so, it had burned itself out years before; for now they seemed clear and cold as ice. "How do you do, aunt Hannah?" said the Judge, reaching forth his hands. "I have brought the little girl, you see." "What little girl?" inquired the woman, casting her cold eyes on Mary Fuller. "I know nothing about any little girl." "Then uncle Nathan didn't get my letter," said the Judge, a little anxiously. "He hasn't had a letter these three years," was the concise reply. "Well, I must see him then. Where is he, aunt Hannah?" "In his old place." "Where, on the back porch?" "Yes." "Well, aunt Hannah, just see to my little girl, while I go and speak with uncle Nathan," and the Judge disappeared from the entry, through a side door. "Come into the out room," said aunt Hannah to Mary, leading the way through an opposite door.