Alas for human foresight!
The next day, at sundown, a loaded wagon drove up; then a carryall, from which stepped an elderly couple and a sweet pretty girl.
"What angel is that, alighting upon earth?" I exclaimed, looking over Miss Joey's head.
"Thought she was goin' to be a little girl," said she.
"Wal," replied Mr. Lane, "that's what he called her: suppose she seems little to him. But so much the better. The bigger she is, the more company she'll be."
Miss Joey went in to receive them, and I retired to my chamber. From the window I observed that the pretty girl was very handy about helping, and heard her mother call her Mary Ellen.
The next morning, just as I was leaving for the office, I heard a quick step across the entry. The door opened, and "the little girl," Mary Ellen, came in. Her hair was pushed straight behind her ears, and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.
"I came in," said she, rather bashfully, "to ask if Mr. Lane would help us set up a bedstead; father had to go, and mother's feeble."
"Mr. Lane's gone to get his horse shod," said Miss Joey.
Mary Ellen stood still, doubting whether to speak, but looking rather puzzled; for David was in plain sight, fixing his pickerel-traps in the back-room.