"Oh, don't trouble! I will come down."
"I shall be glad to do it," said Hanny, with a gentle eagerness.
Cousin Jennie put the bread and the eggs,—she found seven,—and part of a cake, in a little basket, and said, "Run along, Little Red Riding Hood. There are no wolves to catch you."
They teased Cousin Jennie a little because the tall young man with bright eyes was named Woolf.
Mrs. Clemm received the little girl's parcel with her usual quiet air, and thanked her for coming. And before she could hunt up her ever-scanty purse the child had said Good-evening, and vanished.
Hanny heard the "spells" rather rudely explained a day or two after, and understood the melancholy shadow that hung about the house. People were not any more delicate in gossiping about their neighbour's short-comings then than now, when all the little faults and frailties of heroes are paraded to the public gaze and comment.
But the exquisite care with which the mother watched over the son of her heart, made her one of the little girl's heroines later on, when she could fully appreciate the tender solicitude that tried to shield him and save him from temptation, when possible, bearing her burthen with such heroic dignity that she was fain to persuade her own soul that she covered it from critical eyes. When one woman suffers bravely to the death, amid untold privation, and another takes up the dropped burthen with a devotion no anxiety can wear out, is it not proof that there must have been some charm in the poet seen more clearly by those who loved him?
There was a new book by Miss Macintosh among those they had brought home; and this Hanny devoured eagerly, sitting on her high perch, while the rest were busy in the household routine. In the afternoon, she read aloud while the others sewed. Sometimes the Major came in to listen; but he thought there were no novels written nowadays like "The Mysteries of Udolpho," "The Children of the Abbey," and "The Vicar of Wakefield."
"Oh," said the little girl, "isn't this funny! We have the first volume of 'The Grumbler' and the second of 'The Grandfather.' I don't believe I can piece them together," with a bright, mirthful expression.
"And I picked those up myself. No; we are interested in the 'Grumbler' now and must know what became of him."