Huldah took the parcel with a joy she did not attempt to conceal.
In her pleasure she lost her shyness. "Oh, miss!" she exclaimed,
"I wish you could be there to see Dick when he knows the bone is for
him!"
"I wish I could, but don't keep him waiting, poor doggie!"
It was not until she put out her hand to take the parcel for Dick that Huldah remembered the basket which she had brought with her to sell, and which she had been holding all this time. Now, though, when she did remember it, she could not bring herself to offer it for sale. Indeed, she longed to give it to pretty, kind Miss Rose.
Miss Rose, though, settled the matter for her. "What a sweetly pretty basket!" she exclaimed. She had noticed it in Huldah's hands, and been attracted by its prettiness. "It is too dainty to put that clumsy parcel into. Isn't it a new one?"
"Yes, miss; I—I made it," stammered Huldah, shyly.
"Did you really? What a clever little girl! Do you make them to sell?" She had begun to understand the situation.
"Yes, miss; but I—I—"
"Will you make one for me? I should very much like to have one; I am always needing baskets. What do they cost?"
"This size is—eighteenpence," said Huldah, hesitatingly. It suddenly seemed to her that it was a great deal of money to ask for it. "You can have this one if you like, miss. It is new; I—I brought it out to—to sell, if I could. I do want to get some money to give to Mrs. Perry—she's been so good to Dick and me, and—and I hadn't got anything to give her." Then, mistaking the cause of Miss Carew's thoughtful silence, she added, nervously, "But perhaps you'd rather have a new one made on purpose for you, miss. This one is quite clean, but—"
"Yes, yes, I'd like to have this one; I'd rather have this one, child. I was only thinking." Then, as she put the money for it into Huldah's hand, she asked gently, "Will you tell me your story, dear, presently, when I come to see Mrs. Perry? I should so like to know it. Then I shall be better able to understand, and perhaps I could help, or do something. I must not keep you now, or Mrs. Perry may begin to worry about you."