The driver examines the carriage closely, and then comes into the yard and asks for hammer, nails, and other repairing material. Tom runs for the supplies, while Tibby watches a small lady, accompanied by a yellow-haired boy with long curls and kilts, step daintily from the broken carriage and enter the yard. The lady smiles upon Tibby and asks if she may sit down to wait under the shade of the patriarchal old tree; and Tibby replies to her questioning, while she sits before her and tells her of her brothers and sisters, and her heart swells with pride at the lady’s praise of her home and surroundings. Her eyes follow those of the lady to the old-fashioned, weather-brown farm-house, with its low-browed gables and spreading lean-tos, built apparently without regard to economy of ground space; then to the left, where upon a little lower ground the great red-roofed barns and spacious corn-cribs stand, and again to the nodding, smiling flowers dotting the lawn. Yes, it was beautiful, the old home, with all its homely comforts, but Tibby had longed to try her wings in flight to seek other fields of enchantment. By and by the little boy becomes restless and begs his mother to go and ride, fidgets and whimpers. Tibby wishes to amuse him, and looks at him longingly, until he comes and puts his small hands in her brown ones, and she tells him of the little singing toad in the tree-top, and of the twittering squirrels who make the elm their home, until his brown eyes grow heavy and he falls asleep in her arms. Then Tibby sits and feasts her eyes on the strange lady’s costume, a poem of harmony in color and fit,—though Tibby does not name it thus,—and feels the contrast between this lady’s attire and her own, marvels at the glittering jewels on her white fingers, and alas, in the girl’s heart, a dormant wild desire springs into active growth. She longs to go with this city-bred woman and have dainty boots and beautiful gowns. Does the cry which she feels within herself reach the heart of the lady? Surely, surely her lips have not spoken, but the stranger lady, as if understanding her thought, says: “What a nice way you have with children, my dear. I should like to have a girl like you to live with me and help me to look after Robert. You have done wonders with him. He is usually averse to strangers. How would you like to go home with me?” “I should like it very much indeed,” she replies, with conviction. “You have no mother, I believe you said,” the lady continues. “Yes, a stepmother. The children are my half-brothers, except Tom and Bess. Our mother died when I was a little girl.” “And what are you now?” asks the lady, smiling. “Quite as large as you, I think,” Tibby says, with no intentional disrespect.