The sun was shining in at the windows of this house, at the close of an afternoon, a few days following the adventure of Henry Burns and Harvey in the mill. It revealed a girl, little, sturdy and of well-knit figure, though in whose childish face there was an underlying trace of shrewdness unusual in one so young; like a little wild creature, or a kitten that has found itself more often chased than petted. The girl was busily engaged, over a kitchen fire, stirring some sort of porridge in a dish. Clearly, hers were spirits not easily depressed by her surroundings, for she whistled at her task,--as good as any boy could have whistled,--and now and again, from sheer excess of animation, she whisked away from the stove and danced about the old kitchen, all alone by herself. "Isn't that oatmeal most ready, Bess?" came a querulous voice presently, from an adjoining room. "What makes you so long?" "Coming, gran', right away now," replied the child. "The coffee's hot, too. Don't it smell go-o-od? But there's only one--" "What?" queried the voice. "Nothing," said the child. She took a single piece of bread from a box, toasted it for a moment, put it on a plate, poured a cup of coffee, dished out a mess of the porridge, and carried it all into the next room. There, an elderly woman, muttering and scolding to herself as she lay on a couch, received it. "Too bad the rheumatics bother so, gran'," said the child, consolingly. "If they last to-morrow, I'm going to tell old Witham and make him send you something good to eat." "No, you won't," exclaimed the woman sharply. "Much he cares! Says he pays me too much now for cooking; and he says I've got money tucked away here. Wish I had." "So do I," said the child. "I'd buy the biggest doll you ever saw." "Fudge!" cried the old woman. "Why, you've outgrown 'em long ago." "I know it," said the child, solemnly. "But I'd just like to have a big one, once." "And so you should, if we had our rights," cried Grannie Thornton, lifting herself up on an elbow, with a jerk that brought forth an exclamation of pain. "If he didn't own everything. If he didn't get it all--what we used to own." "Old Ellison?" suggested the child. "Yes, Jim Ellison." Grannie Thornton sat up and shook a lean fist toward the window that opened off toward the hill. "Oh, he bought it all right. He paid for it, I suppose. But it's ours, by rights. We owned it all once, from Ten Mile Wood to the bridge. But it's gone now." "I don't see why we don't own it now, if that's so," said the child. "Well, it's law doin's," muttered the woman. "Get your own supper, and don't bother me." "I don't understand," said the child, as she went back to the kitchen.