"But, Hetty, ain't you afraid to go home by yourself. I can go with you 's well 's not."
"Bless me, no!" said Hetty. "I always ride alone. Polly knows the road as well as I do;" and she cantered off, saying cheerily, "Goodnight, deacon, I can't tell you how much I'm obliged to you. Please see Jim 's early 's you can to-morrow: I want to get settled and begin work."
When Hetty reached home, the house was silent and dark: only one feeble light glimmered in the hall. As she threw open the door, old Cæsar and Nan rushed forward together from the kitchen, exclaiming, half sobbing,--
"Oh, Miss Hetty! Miss Hetty! we made sure you was killed."
"Nonsense, Nan!" said Hetty, goodnaturedly: "what put such an idea into your head? Haven't I ridden Polly many a darker night than this?"
"Yes'm," sobbed Nan; "but to-night's different. All our luck's gone: 'When the master's dead, the house is shook,' they say where I was raised. Oh, Miss Hetty! it's lonesome's death in the kitchen."
Hetty threw open the door into the sitting-room. "Put on a stick of wood, Nan, and make the fire blaze up," she said.
While Nan was doing this, Hetty lighted the lamps, drew down the curtains, and gave the room its ordinary evening look. Then she said,--
"Now, Nan, sit down: I want to talk with you," and Hetty herself sat down in her father's chair on the right hand of the fireplace.
"Oh, Miss Hetty!" cried Nan, "don't you go set in that chair: you'll die before the year 's out if you do. Oh please, Miss Hetty! get right up;" and the poor old woman took forcible hold of her young mistress's arms, and tried to lift her from the chair.
"To please you, I will sit in another chair now, Nan, because I want you to be quiet and listen to me. But that will be my chair to sit in always, just as it used to be my father's; and I shall not die before the year 's out, Nan, nor I hope for a great many years to come yet," said Hetty.
"Oh, no! please the Lord, Miss Hetty," sobbed Nan: "who'd take care of Cæsar an' me ef you was to die."
"But I expect you and Cæsar to take care of me, Nan," replied Hetty, smiling, "and I want to have a good talk with you now, and make you understand about our life here. You want to please me, don't you, Nan?"