On this particular day—this Thanksgiving day of which we are speaking—Miss Hetty had completed her culinary preparations, that is, she had stuffed her turkey, and put it in the oven, and kneaded her pudding, for, though but one would be present at the dinner, and that herself, her conscience would not have acquitted her, if she had not made all the preparations to which she had been accustomed on such occasions.
This done, she sat down to her knitting, casting a glance every now and then at the oven to make sure that all was going on well. It was a quiet morning, and Miss Hetty began to think to the clicking of her knitting needles.
"After all," thought she, "it's rather solitary taking dinner alone, and that on Thanksgiving day. I remember a long time ago, when my father was living, and my brothers and sisters, what a merry time we used to have round eth table. But they are all dead, and I—I alone am left!"
Miss Hetty sighed, but after a while the recollections of those old times returned. She tried to shake them off, but they had a fascination about them after all, and would not go at her bidding.
"There used to be another there," thought she, "Nick Anderson. He, too, I fear, is dead."
Hetty heaved a thoughtful sigh, and a faint color came into her cheeks. She had reason. This Nicholas Anderson had been a medical student, apprenticed to her father, or rather placed with him to be prepared for his profession. He was, perhaps, a year older than Hetty, and had regarded her with more than ordinary warmth of affection. He had, in fact, proposed to her, and had been conditionally accepted, on a year's probation. The trouble was, he was a little disposed to be wild, and being naturally of a lively and careless temperament, did not exercise sufficient discrimination in the choice of his associates. Hetty had loved him as warmly as one of her nature could love. She was not one who would be drawn away beyond the dictates of reason and judgment by the force of affection. Still it was not without a feeling of deep sorrow—deeper than her calm manner led him to suspect—that at the end of the year's probation, she informed Anderson that the result of his trial was not favorable to his suit, and that henceforth he must give up all thoughts of her.
To his vehement asseverations, promises and protestations, she returned the same steady and inflexible answer, and, at the close of the interview, he left her, quite as full of indignation against her as of grief for his rejection.
That night his clothing was packed up, and lowered from the window, and when the next morning dawned it was found that he had left the house, and as was intimated in a slight note pencilled and left on the table in his room, never to return again.
While Miss Henderson's mind was far back in the past, she had not observed the approach of a man, shabbily attired, accompanied by a little girl, apparently some eight years of age. The man's face bore the impress of many cares and hardships. The little girl was of delicate appearance, and an occasional shiver showed that her garments were too thin to protect her sufficiently from the inclemency of the weather.
"This is the place, Henrietta," said the traveller at length, pausing at the head of the gravelled walk which led up to the front door of the prim-looking brick house.