She burst into Luella's placid afternoon kitchen, big with her news, bustling about excitedly, while Luella methodically packed a market-basket with half a cold chicken, an untouched loaf of huckleberry bread, a pan of tiny biscuits and a glass of currant jelly. "Butter I know they've got, and milk, for I see Wilkins stop up there this mornin' as I come down, and I wondered who on earth had taken that God-forsaken little cottage. 'Twasn't occupied last season. Cryin' right out loud, was she? She must 'a been all tired out to make such a fuss over a tin o' huckleberry bread. I s'pose she hasn't got many breakfasts in her life. Ten to one 'twas Myra Tenny that disappointed her: it sounds like her. Always undertakin' more 'n any one woman c'd possibly attend to, and then goin' back on you. Pretty cross himself, was he? Well, they'd had words, most likely. They take it hard at first. They ain't long married, of course, if they're young as you say. Poor things. There, I guess that's about all." Luella closed the kitchen door softly and they hurried along the trail. "He's off as sound as a baby," she confided to Caroline, "sometimes he'll sleep two hours, he's up so much in the night." As the relief expedition neared the cottage, Henry D. Thoreau bounded out to greet them, the girl behind him, still flushed and swollen-eyed, but with her thick, reddish hair newly braided in a crown around her head. "Good afternoon," Luella called cheerily, "I hear you're in trouble up here! You ought to let me known--I'm the one for jobs like this. Just let me into the kitchen, Miss----" She paused, but as the girl made no attempt to help her, continued easily, "well, I should say so! Got a little burnt, didn't it? Never mind, you ought to a' seen my first corn-meal muffins! Now you just step out and rest a minute, dear, and by the time you've called your husband I'll have a little lunch scratched up and you'll feel so different you won't know yourself. It's surprisin' how distressed you c'n get on an empty stomach. 'Tis your husband, isn't it, or is it your brother?" "No, it's not--yes. It--it's not my brother," the girl said in a low voice. "No," Luella repeated soothingly, "no, I see. That's a fine cat, ain't it? I've read of 'em--Angora, ain't it?--but I never saw one. They say they're mostly deaf. Is that one?" "Yes. No--I don't know. I don't believe she is," the girl murmured, brokenly. She seemed newly distressed; her lips, very red against her white cheeks, quivered, her full breast strained against her white linen blouse. Luella strode lightly about the disorderly little kitchen; she had forgotten the very presence of the girl, it seemed, for as she gathered the soiled dishes, coaxed the fire, filled the kettle and hastily removed the traces of the ill-fated huckleberry bread, she hummed a tune and appeared to see only her work.