It was the man’s turn to sigh now. “We come down here to try the climate for her mother—but it didn’t do; we came too late, or something. The mother died the very next summer, and we’ve had to pull along alone. There, ma’am, I think that buckle is all right now; it won’t come out again of itself in a hurry. It’s lucky I happened to be around; it might have made you trouble. Why, no, ma’am, I don’t want no _pay_ for a job like that; it didn’t take ten minutes, and it ain’t in my line anyhow.” “What can she do when she is well?” asked Mrs. Hammond, holding out the shining silver. “What, my girl? Why, as to that, I dunno as she can be said to know how to do anything. She works along as well as she can; and we make out to live, but you see it is pretty nigh four years since her mother died; and she was a young thing then. She ain’t had no chance. I ain’t got no change, Mis’ Hammond, and I don’t want no pay, neither.” “I don’t want change, Mr. West; it is worth a dollar to me to know that all the buckles and straps are in order. I shall leave that matter of hauling the dirt in your hands, then. It can be done just as well while I am away; Mr. Hart will be back and forth, I presume, and he can direct you if you need any directions; good-morning!” And the little pony phaeton drove away. As the fat little white pony carefully drew the carriage around the curve, his mistress heard a weak, petulant voice say: “O father, it is _so_ hot; I don’t know what to do.” “Poor thing!” said Mrs. Hammond for the third time, “I don’t know what she will do. It _is_ very warm indeed. She thinks Monteagle sounds like Heaven. I presume it would seem almost like Heaven to her. If there was anything she could do”—and then Mrs. Hammond looked at her watch, and spoke sharply to the fat pony, and they went to the house at a brisk trot. It was a lovely home. Before even the pony turned in at the tree-lined carriage drive which wound quite around the house, you would have known by the air of quiet elegance which hung gracefully over everything in sight, that you were coming to a home that commanded money and culture. In the wide handsome hall everything was in order, and the rooms opening from them were cool, and dark, and elegant. Yet Mrs. Hammond as she dropped sun hat and umbrella on a white sofa, and trailed her white morning shawl over the soft carpet toward an easy chair, said: “O dear! it is warm _everywhere_. I wish we were on the mountain this minute.” Even as she spoke, she thought of that hollow-eyed West girl again. When, after a few minutes of rest, she mounted the long winding flight of stairs to the nursery, the sight which met her eyes was not calculated to cool her.