And then the next day she took the paper and slipped it underneath the door.
But she heard nothing from Fanny. And Tom was too busy at work to come near her.
Lessons and games and talks with everybody who came across her path now occupied her time.
Mrs. Keith said to her husband one night:
"I really dread the development of that child. I don't know which is busiest—her brain or tongue. I hope she won't grow into a chattering woman. I found her having a long dissertation to-day on the back doorstep with a wandering pedlar. She knows his history, and all the names and ages of all his relations, for I heard her repeating it all to Andy in the pantry."
"Oh, she's all right!" said Colonel Keith kindly. "She is interested in her fellow-creatures. It is better to have one's interest circle round them than round oneself."
And then one day Harebell got a letter, and it was a letter that filled her small heart with joy and satisfaction. It was from Tom Triggs:
"MY DEAR MISSY,—I have not yet wrote you a letter but I do so now hoping this will find you well as it leaves me. I write to say the Squire, he have give me the job and I thank you down to the ground for arsking of him to do it. I have the cottage in the wood, and all is going on as you said it ought. Nex April I hopes to get it, and mother's bits will stock it fine. And Fanny Crake and me are walking out, for on looking round I felt as how I ought to oblige you, and there seems no other to soot me, and Fanny says your heart be terrible set on to it. So we hopes if things go on well, to be husband and wife in April. Wishing you well.
"Your obedient servant,
"TOM TRIGGS."
"P.S. The best which has come to me is what I have not the learning to speak on. But I am still I humbly trust, I. T. D."
She carried this letter all day about with her and slept with it under her pillow.
Her aunt found her one evening spelling it out to herself by the light of a candle.