It was like a great many others; brown with the weather, and having a certain forlorn look that a house gets when there are no loving eyes within it to care how it looks. The doors did not hang straight; the windows had broken panes; a tub here and a broken pitcher there stood in sight of every passer-by. A thin wreath of smoke curled up from the chimney, so it was certain that people lived there; but nothing else looked like it. The girls went in through the rickety gate. Over the house the bare branches of a cherry tree gave no promise of summery bloom; and some tufts of brown stems standing up from the snow hardly suggested the gay hollyhocks of the last season. The two girls slackened their steps yet more, and seemed not to know very well how to go on.
"I don't like it, Tilly," Maria said. "I have a mind to give it up."
"Oh, I wouldn't, Maria," the little one replied; but she looked puzzled and doubtful.
"Well, suppose they don't want to see us in here? it don't look as if they did."
"We can try, Maria; it will do no harm to try."
"I don't know that," said Maria. "I'll never come such an errand again, Matilda; never! I give you notice of that. What shall I do? Knock?"
"I suppose so."
Maria knocked. The next minute the upper half of the door was opened, and an oldish woman looked out. A dirty woman, with her hair all in fly-away order, and her dress very slatternly as well as soiled.
"What do you want?"
"Are there some children here?" Maria began.