"Nice home to offer a woman?" said Calvin. "Cheerful sort of habitation? Hey? Well, there! you see how 'tis yourself. A rolling--stone--gathers--no--moss, little hossy." As he spoke he was climbing down from his perch; now he threw the reins over the brown horse's neck, and walking to the edge of the empty cellar-place, sat down on one of the granite blocks. "But I want you to understand that I warn't born rollin'!" he continued with some severity. "If you think that, hossy, you show your ignorance. I was a stiddy boy, and a good boy, as boys go. Mother never made no complaint, fur as I know. Poor mother! if I'm glad of anything in this mortal world, it's that mother went before the house did. That old lobster was right, darn his hide! a woman has to have a home. Poor mother! She thought a sight of her home and her gardin. I can't but scarcely feel she must be round somewheres, now; pickin' gooseberries, most likely. Sho! gooseberries in October! well, butternuts, then! The old butternut tree warn't burned. Hossy, I tell you, it seems as though if I was to turn round this minute I should expect to see mother's white apurn--" He turned as he spoke, and stopped short. Something white glinted behind the withered bushes of the garden plot. Calvin Parks sat motionless for a moment, gazing with wide eyes. A cold finger traced his spine, and his heart thumped loud in his ears. The something white seemed to move--a swaying motion; and now a soft voice began to croon, half speaking, half singing. "I'd--I'd like to know what you are scairt of!" said Calvin Parks, addressing himself. "You might put a name to it. It would be just like mother, wouldn't it, to come back if it was anyways convenient, and see to them butternuts? Well, then! You wouldn't be scairt of mother, would you? I've no patience with you. The dumb critter there has more spunk than what you have." The brown horse had raised his head, and his ears were pointed toward the something white that glinted through the bushes. Another instant, and Calvin rose, and casting a scared look at the brown horse, made his way with faltering steps round the cellar-hole and put aside the bushes. A small girl in a white pinafore cowered like a rabbit under a straggling rose-bush, and looked up at him with wide eyes of terror. Calvin's eyes, which had been no less wide, softened into a friendly twinkle. "How de do?" he said. "Pleased to meet you!" The child drew a long, sobbing breath. "I thought you was ghosts!" she said. "So I thought you was!" said Calvin. "But we ain't, neither one on us; nor yet hossy ain't. See hossy there? you never heard of a ghost hossy, did you now?" The child's face brightened as she looked at the brown horse, stolidly cropping his clover. The tucked-in corners of her mouth looked as if a smile were trying to come out, but was not allowed. "And what was you doin' here all by your lonesome?" asked Calvin. "I was playin' s'pose," said the child soberly.