"I'm here, and Marian's somewhere about, I guess. Was you calculatin' to show goods or solicit anythin'? We hain't no call for dress-makers' charts, and we don't want to subscribe to no cook-books, I'm cook-book enough myself."
Dorothy smiled. "Oh, no. I don't make my living that way," she answered cheerfully. "Perhaps I'd better see the little girl, Miss——" she added after a few moments' thought.
"Hepzibah Toothacre is my name," remarked the gaunt woman as she turned away leaving the young lady standing on the step.
Dorothy made a wry face. "Toothacre or some kind of acher I should think," she said to herself. "She looked sour enough to be several kinds of ache rolled in one. I hope the rest of the family are not like that."
She did not have to wait long before a little girl came along the dim entry toward her. She was brown-haired, brown-eyed, dark-skinned and rather pale. She wore a plain blue gingham frock, and her hair was tied in two pig-tails with a narrow black ribbon. She paused timidly at sight of a stranger, but at Miss Dorothy's smile she came forward eagerly. "Oh, are you—are you——" she began.
"The new teacher?" interrupted Miss Dorothy. "Yes, dear, I am. May I come in? The ogress that guards your castle looked as if she might make a meal of me and I was afraid to come any further."
Marian looked puzzled for a moment, then her face broke into a smile. "Oh, you mean Heppy. She is rather cross sometimes. She was not very polite not to ask you in, but she is in a bad humor to-day; there were two peddlers here this morning and she can't bear peddlers."
"She thought I was one, and that was why she was so grouchy, I see."
"I will go and ask her to show you to your room," returned Marian; "it is all ready."
"Can't you show me?" asked Miss Dorothy with whimsical anxiety in her tones.