"Stop, child! don't say another word!" gasped the old woman. "Of course, I'll come. Why--you don't know what you're doing for me----"
"No; we're doing for ourselves," laughed Lyddy.
"You're givin' me a chance to be independent," cried Mrs. Harrison. "That's the greatest thing in the world."
"Isn't it?" returned Lyddy, sweetly. "I think so. That's what we are trying to do ourselves. So you'll come?"
"Sure as I'm alive, Miss," declared the old woman. "Ye need have no fear I won't. I'll be over in time to help ye with supper Monday night. And wait till Tuesday with your washin'. I'm a good washer, if I _do_ say it as shouldn't."
The young folks drove back to Hillcrest much more gaily than they had come. At least, 'Phemie and Lucas were very gay on the front seat. Harris Colesworth said to Lyddy:
"Lucas has been giving me the full history of the Widow Harrison's troubles. And her being sold out of house and home isn't the worst she's been through."
"The man she married--late in life--was a Tartar, I tell you! Just as cranky and mean as he could be. Everybody thought he was an old soldier. He was away from here all during the Civil War--from '61 to '65--and folks supposed he'd get a pension, and that his widow would have _something_ for her trouble of marrying and living with the old grouch.
"But it seems he never enlisted at all. He was just a sutler, or camp follower, or something. He couldn't get a pension. And he let folks think that he had brought home a lot of money, and had hidden it; but when he died two years ago Mrs. Harrison didn't find a penny. He'd just mortgaged the old place, and they'd been living on the money he got that way."
"It seems too bad she should lose everything," agreed Lyddy.
"I am going to stay over Monday and go to the vendue," said Harris. "Lucas says she has a few pieces of furniture that maybe I'd like to have--a chest of drawers, and a desk----"
"Oh, yes! I saw them," responded Lyddy, "And she's got some kitchen things I'd like to have, too. I _need_ her Dutch oven."
"Oh, I say, Miss Lyddy!" he exclaimed, eagerly, yet bashfully, "you're not going to try to cook over that open fire all this summer? It will kill you."
"I _do_ need a stove--a big range," admitted the young girl. "But I don't see how----"